


The Past Dictates The Future

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, No Knowledge of Twin Peaks Required, Slow Burn, Twin Peaks AU, Twin Peaks Fusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-25 01:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13823148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: “B, thank god.” he says after he settles, his face immediately going somber and quiet. “Don’t tell anybody, and I mean anybody, that I am telling you any of this. I am telling you this as a personal favor as your friend, not as the sheriff, got it?” Kevin’s voice is low, and his hands are on her shoulders, and Betty nods, already swallowing a lump in her throat. “We found Polly.” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Her body was found this morning, on the shore of Sweetwater River. Nobody knows yet. Pop Tate found it, and he went straight to me.”





	1. Chapter One: Dark Waters

**Author's Note:**

> I got bit by the idea of a Twin Peaks inspired Riverdale Au while walking home. Work title is taken from an episode of Twin Peaks, and the chapter title is the title of a classic noir film from the thirties, as well all the other chapter titles! This is going to be pulling a lot of ideas and inspiration from Twin Peaks, but it won't be a one to one comparison. This is pretty different from any of my previous projects so, let me know what you guys think!
> 
> P.S. The next chapter of "the long way home" is almost done!

On an overcast morning in early October, Betty Cooper gets a phone call. The name on her phone screen reads Kevin.

“Hey Kev, what’s —”

“I need you to come down to the station, Betty. Now.” Kevin’s voice is low, like he’s whispering into the phone. Betty frowns. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Just come see me. Leave now.” 

He hangs up before she can say anything else. Frowning again, Betty quickly pours her coffee into a travel mug and packs her in progress lunch for later that day into the fridge. She barely takes the time to shove a pair of boots on before she’s stepping into her car and heading for the station, when a text from Kevin comes in suddenly. 

_Don’t park at the station._

The whole drive to the other side of Riverdale, Betty is antsy. She has an inkling what this is about, and Kevin’s rushed and quiet tone has her on edge. The edges on the leaves of the town’s famous maple trees are just starting to turn fiery orange and red, and some of them plaster the streets from a recent rain. She doesn’t notice any of this, driving just above the speed limit to reach the parking lot of a coffee shop across the street and down the block from Riverdale’s only police station. She buys a blueberry muffin for herself and two almond biscotti for Kevin from the coffee shop and shoves the receipt into her wallet. As she walks along the street behind the station itself, she sees Kevin, glancing around furtively as he leans against a lamppost. She walks over to him, and taps him on the shoulder. He jumps about three feet. 

“B, thank god.” he says after he settles, his face immediately going somber and quiet. “Don’t tell anybody, and I mean anybody, that I am telling you any of this. I am telling you this as a personal favor as your friend, not as the sheriff, got it?” Kevin’s voice is low, and his hands are on her shoulders, and Betty nods, already swallowing a lump in her throat. “We found Polly.” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Her body was found this morning, on the shore of Sweetwater River. Nobody knows yet. Pop Tate found it, and he went straight to me.”

“Oh god.” Betty managed, her hands flying up to her mouth. She shook her head quickly, her eyes wide. “I knew it. I knew something was wrong.” 

“I know. And I know as well as you do what happened back when we were in high school, and this is me, your friend, giving you a chance to get the word out, anonymously, that whatever ruling the medical examiner is going to end up getting paid to make is going to be a bald faced lie.” 

“So you don’t think this was an accident?” Betty chewed her lip before swallowing what felt like it must have been half her cup of coffee before Kevin shook his head. 

“I don’t think there’s a chance in hell. If I’m wrong, I will eat Joaquin’s bookhouse boys jacket.”

“How much time can you give me?” she asks, already pulling her phone and a notebook from her pocket, cogs in her brain spinning at maximum. 

“Two hours. I wrote the intake form from Pop up myself and I wrote the time wrong.” Kevin grimaced and glanced at his phone. “I know it’s a risk but… someone has to do something, this time. My father may have been in the Blossoms’ pockets, but I swore when I took this job I would do the right thing. And this is the right thing, Betty.” he squeezes her shoulders, and Betty nods. 

“Okay. Okay. I’m going to write something up, drive it as far out as I can get in the time allotted, and drop it off at whatever city I end up in’s paper as an anonymous tip. I can’t do anything here, I can’t breathe a word of this to my parents. I think my best bet is to book it and try and get to Armonk, out in Westchester. Just get out of Rockland County completely. Armonk is where the headquarters for the Daily Voice is. They cover Rockland County events sometimes.” Betty takes a deep breath, and notices her hands are shaking. “God. It’s happening all over again, Kev.” her eyes water and Kevin nods, leaning in to give her a hug. 

“We’ll fix it this time, B. I promise. Now drive. I’ll stall as long as I can.” 

“Okay…. Wait. How did.” Betty took another deep breath, fighting the urge to plunge her nails into her palms. “How did it happen.” 

“Obviously there’s no official autopsy yet, since this is basically a leak but,” Kevin pauses, looking around them. “Single bullet wound to the head. Signs of a struggle. Ligature marks on her wrists.”

“Like Jason.” Betty says, her voice hollow. 

“Like Jason.” Kevin nods as he echoes her sentiment, and gives her a tight hug before pushing her towards the sidewalk. “Go. Get on top of this.” 

“I owe you, Kev.” Betty said over her shoulder as she rushed back to her car. 

It began to drizzle as Betty raced down the highway, as fast as she felt comfortable, and towards the county line between Rockland and Westchester. A county even further away from her parents’ sway would be better, but getting out of Rockland was the best she could hope for with so little time to work with. She pulled into the parking lot of The Daily Voice’s headquarters with a little less than an hour to spare, and set about scribbling an anonymous letter to the paper, and then dropping it, along with a photo of Polly and the twins, into the tip slot in their office door. 

_A reliable source revealed that a dead body was found in Riverdale this morning. Riverdale, a small town in Rockland County, was home to a heated murder investigation several years ago after the death of local boy, Jason Blossom. The body was found on the edge of Sweetwater River, which is where the Blossom boy’s was found, and seems to have been killed by a single gunshot wound to the forehead. The body shows signs of struggle and restraint. The female victim is, as of now, suspected to be Jason Blossom’s high school sweetheart and mother of his twins born after his death, Pollyana Cooper._

After dropping the note and picture off, Betty texts Kevin and tells him it’s done, and then drives to the next town over and pays cash for a motel room. Her hope is that the paper will run her tip the next morning, and she can snag a copy, clip the article, and overnight it somewhere important. Once she’s checked into the room, she texts her mother and tells her that she’ll be out of town overnight, as a close friend was having a family emergency and needed a ride. After a moment’s thought, she types up a vague message to Kevin, and hopes he gets the hint. 

_Kev. Remember sophomore year when J and I worked the paper? We started that huge project that we could never finish? The supplies from it are in the old office, in a metal box, above the lights. Move them to the treehouse sometime._

Seconds later, her phone rings. 

“Okay I’m pretty sure I know what you mean, but I want to check.” Kevin says on the other end of the line, voice still a rushed whisper. 

“The lock box in the ceiling of the Blue and Gold. It has all the stuff Jughead and I found back in high school, when we looked into Jason. Move it into the old treehouse. There’s this old, moldy dresser in there.” 

“Yeah, okay. I’ll have Joaquin move it, I have to stick around the station.” 

“Thank you, Kev. Again.” Betty mumbled, her voice a tired whisper. 

“Just figure it out, B. I believe in you.” 

Kevin hangs up before she can say anything else. 

Alone in her motel room, collapsed across the questionably clean duvet cover, Betty Cooper finally cries. With nothing left to focus on, no immediate mission in need of her attention, the reality of her sister’s death slams into her full force, knocking the wind out of her. Her nails clutch and scrabble at the bedspread as her body heaves with sobs. She is never going to see her sister again. Her sister’s twin children have lost another parent. Her sister’s twin children are orphans. 

The only family member who truly cared about Betty and what she wanted was dead. Gone. 

Memories of the summer Jason Blossom died flood her mind. She doesn’t think about that summer very often. It hurt too much to remember how it changed everything for her, her friends, their entire town. Of course, it hadn’t really changed the town. There had always been something rotten in Riverdale, that summer it simply chose to show its face at last. 

The lockbox she’d sent Kevin to move had everything she’d learned that summer in it. Every scrap of evidence, every theory they couldn’t prove, every relevant issue of the Blue and Gold. She’d locked it all up when Jughead had been sent away, and hoped some day they could actually prove what they’d figured out over ten years ago. 

Jason Blossom had been murdered by his own father. And now, more than ever, Betty was convinced her own parents, Hal and Alice Cooper, had something to do with it. It was possible, probable even, that Jughead’s dad had been involved as well. After all, Blossom-Cooper business meetings were almost always held at One Eyed Jack’s, the shady but ostensibly upscale club owned by FP Jones, who also owned the town’s sketchy biker bar. And he was Jughead’s father, who had Jughead sent away to Ohio when he found the two of them digging around in the Blossoms’ lives. 

The problem with all this, the reason Jughead was sent away, the reason Betty spent the rest of high school on lockdown, the reason they could never prove that Clifford Blossom killed his son or that the Coopers had something to do with it, was that the Blossoms and Coopers ruled Riverdale with an iron fist. They were the founding families of Riverdale. The Blossoms owned every hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, and inn the town had. They also owned most of the restaurants, anything the town could call a historical landmark or a tourist trap, and their maple syrup business was the backbone of the town’s economy. The Coopers ran The Register, Riverdale’s official local paper, and they also owned and controlled several papers in the surrounding areas and a handful of local news channels. The Blossoms kept Riverdale running, and the Coopers made sure no one ever knew anything was ever amiss. 

But to pull off Jason’s murder and the events surrounding it, the Blossom-Cooper magnate would have needed outside help. They would have needed someone to clean up their mess and keep all their secrets. And if there was anything Betty learned through years of friendship with Jughead Jones, it was that his father was very, very good at keeping secrets. 

Betty falls asleep, eventually. Fully clothed and cried out on top of the motel bedspread. She tosses and turns the whole night, her mind unable to rest, haunted by the knowledge of the evil coming to a head once more in her hometown. She has nightmares, flashes of Polly’s face as Hal Cooper shoots her right between the eyes, flashes of herself tied to a chair, screaming for help, old memories of the summer Jason died. 

She wakes up in a cold sweat at 5:02am. She slips her phone into her pocket without checking it and walks down to the lobby, where she knows there will be coffee and Svenhard pastries, so she can choke down some food and caffeine before she fulfills her real goal: picking up a copy of The Daily Voice. 

There, on the front page, in medium print, is the phrase “Another Mysterious Death Shakes Riverdale on page C2.”

“Excuse me,” she says to the tired looking man at the lobby counter “Does this hotel have a business center with a scanner I could use?”

“Yeah. Take a right, go all the way down the hall, and it’s on your left. No food or drink by the computer banks.” he gestures at her coffee and half eaten pastry with a frown. Betty nods. 

“Thank you!” 

She chugs down her coffee and eats the rest of the pastry on the walk to the business center, the paper shoved under her arm. It’s about 5:30 in the morning now, and no one else is there yet, so Betty takes a seat at the computer closest to the cheap scanner at the edge of the table. Logging into a dummy email she keeps, she puts the articles on the scanner and digs through the email’s document files until she finds the two things she’s looking for. The first is an article from a few years back concerning the murder of an unnamed blonde John Doe in New Jersey, just across the river. The second was the tip contact email for the FBI agent who’d been handling the murder. Special Agent F. Jones. Also known as Forsythe Pendleton Jones the third, son of FP Jones the second. Alias, or more aptly, childhood nickname, Jughead Jones. 

She always knew he’d make something amazing of himself. 

Once the article from The Daily Voice is scanned and saved, she attaches that, an old article about Jason’s death, and the article about the Jersey John Doe to an email with F. Jones’ FBI email in the address line. 

_Consider this an anonymous tip._ , the email reads. 

She signs it _B._


	2. Out of the Fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Forsythe “Jughead” Jones, also known as “Agent Jones” or “Just call me Jones” sees the email around 7am, while eating breakfast. 
> 
> The name “Pollyanna Cooper” registers before the initial does. 
> 
> B.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER WARNINGS: This chapter contains discussions of emotional abuse, manipulation, and forced institutionalization. Nothing more than a few sentences, and nothing any worse than the show itself handles, but it's there.

Agent Forsythe “Jughead” Jones, also known as “Agent Jones” or “Just call me Jones” sees the email around 7am, while eating breakfast. 

The name “Pollyanna Cooper” registers before the initial does. 

_B._

Jughead chokes on his coffee.

“I got a tip,” he says to his superior over the phone a few minutes later “on a case probably related to my unsolved Jersey case, and a decade old unsolved murder.

“Is it verifiable?”

“I’m calling the sheriff to double check, but the tip is from a published article in a paper.”

“Fine. Go. But take a _car_ this time Jones.” 

The other man hangs up abruptly. 

Jughead does not call the sheriff. He grabs his go bag, the ancient tape recorder he used to take notes, and sends a reply to the dummy email from his own private account. 

_b._   
_be safe._

Then he tosses everything in the car and drives. He has to make a stop along the way, to pick up some old files, and he wants to get to Riverdale sooner, rather than later. 

While Jughead zips down a New York state highway, Betty fields a handful of messages before she heads back to Rockland County. Most of the messages are from Kevin.

_Joaquin moved your stuff._

_Also, Halice know, and so do Mr. and Mrs. Red Devil, but they don’t want to tell you, Cher, or the twins yet._

There’s also a text from her mother. 

_Elizabeth. Family dinner, tonight, seven sharp._

And last, a notification from the dummy email she used to email Jughead. There was one message, from a seemingly random email address. It told her to be safe. She smiled, and assumed that meant Jughead had gotten the message. Ignoring the others, she responded to Kevin before she started her drive home. 

_Thanks, Kev. I owe you guys._   
_And thanks for the heads up, too._

Once she’s all done, she hops into her car, and starts home. There’s a lockbox in her childhood bedroom, under the bed, and she wants to move it to the treehouse, with the other one. All the articles and files and evidence were in the Blue and Gold office, but she kept her personal journals, diaries, and notes from that summer and school year, and she didn’t put the idea of lock picking past either of her parents. It’s a week day between the hours of five am and six pm, which means her parents won’t be home, and she can just use her spare key to go upstairs, grab the box, and take it back to the treehouse and stash it with the one from the Blue and Gold in the old treehouse’s chest of drawers. Then, both boxes safely hidden away, she can go back to her studio apartment on the edge of town and deal with all the things she needs to deal with. Namely telling Cheryl and the twins. 

Once both boxes are hidden away in the treehouse, Betty drives home and channels all her nervous energy into the kitchen. She puts three mugs out on the table, matching ones for the twins and the heavy red mug Cheryl always uses. She puts milk in a pot to warm up for hot chocolate, and a kettle of water for tea on the stove. Before getting on her step stool to find Cheryl’s favorite tea, she pulls her phone out to text her. 

_Bring the twins to my apartment. Now._

After a moment’s thought, she sends a second text. 

_Bring hot house orchids._

It was a years old code about emergencies involving the twins, so hopefully Cheryl would understand things were serious. As Betty is pouring hot cocoa and boiling water into mugs, she hears the sound of Cheryl’s car screeching into her driveway. She puts a tea bag in the red mug, and Cheryl opens the door without knocking. 

“Hi Auntie Betty!” her voice was forced cheer, and she had a tight and obviously fake smile on her face and the sullen almost-teenage twins behind her. “What the hell is going on?” she hisses in Betty’s ear as she walks past her, sitting the twins down. Betty shakes her head, and gives both twins a quick hug. 

“There’s cocoa on the table for you, JJ and Eliza. Get warm, Cheryl and I have to step outside for a second.” Betty puts a hand on Cheryl’s wrist and tugs, and the twins nod mutely, clearly aware something is awry. 

“Betty what the hell is going on?” Cheryl says in a panicked whisper, once the door is closed, leaving the two woman outside. 

“They found Polly.” Betty replied, her voice quiet and strained. Cheryl’s pupils blew wide and her mouth fell open. She was one of the few people who knew Polly had been missing, not out of town for business. 

“Betty, no—” she starts, shaking her head, but Betty nods, her eyes filling with tears. 

“Kevin got a call from Pop this morning. He found her at Sweetwater. Marks on her wrists. Bullet hole between her eyes. Just like —” Betty’s voice cracks. 

“Just like JJ.” Cheryl says, her voice hollow. 

“Kev told me yesterday. He wanted to give us a headstart, some kind of chance so they don’t… so they don’t get away with this again. My parents know, I don’t know about yours. Kev says they weren’t planning to tell us or the twins yet. I sent an anonymous tip out to a paper in Westchester County, and I sent the tip to an old friend.” 

“I can’t believe this is happening _again_ ” Cheryl’s voice is hoarse and Betty swallows heavily, nodding as she squeezes Cheryl’s shoulders. 

“I don’t think you and the twins should go home. Get a room in town or just outside of town or something. I don’t want you or JJ and Eliza anywhere near your parents right now. Or mine.” 

“What about you?” Cheryl frowned, glancing through the window at the twins. 

“I’ll be fine. I have help coming, I think. I hope.” she wraps Cheryl in a hug, and when she pulls away, there are tears in Cheryl’s eyes. 

“We have to go in there and tell them they’re orphans, Betty.” Cheryl choked out, shaking slightly. “We have to tell them they don’t have a mom anymore.” 

“They have you. And me. Keep them safe, okay?” Betty says quietly as they reach for the door. Cheryl nods. 

The twins cried when Betty and Cheryl told them what happened. Betty could still hear them sobbing from the backseat of Cheryl’s car as she drove away. When the car is out of sight and earshot, Betty lowers herself, shaking like a leaf, onto her sofa. Her nails fight to dig into her palms as she remembers the night she’d seen with her own eyes what the Blossoms did to their own son. She and Jughead had come into possession of a USB drive with security footage from the basement of One Eyed Jack’s. In it, Clifford Blossom shot his own son, who was tied to a chair, at point blank range. There were a pair of shoes just barely in frame that looked suspiciously like Hal Cooper’s favorite loafers. 

Betty had hidden the drive in a locked jewelry box in a desk drawer with some old school supplies. It had been too late at night for her and Jughead to make the journey across town to the police station, so they planned to do it in the morning. But when Betty woke up the next day, the box was gone. She’d run down the stairs in a panic, only to find her parents standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the last step, their arms crossed and faces cold. 

“You’re sick, Betty.” Hal said, his voice flat and unflinching. Alice held up Betty’s diary and her notebook. 

“Yes. We’re very concerned about all your delusions and paranoid fantasies, Elizabeth.” Alice practically sneered at Betty, waving the books in her face. 

“How could you say these things, think these things, about the Blossoms? They’re practically family.” Hal shook his head. 

“Your poor sister is so upset over all these lies and crazy ideas of yours that we’ve had to send her off to Thornfield, where the Blossoms’ doctor can keep watch of her every moment.” The whole time Alice spoke, her unnerving Stepford smile stayed frozen on her face. Betty swallowed, her eyes going wide with panic. 

“And as for you, young lady,” her mother had continued “Doctor Jacobi’s nurses are on their way to pick you up. We’re scared for you, Elizabeth. So we’re putting you into treatment for awhile. It’s what’s best for your health, dear.” Alice reached out and squeezed Betty’s shoulder. Betty fought the urge to rip herself away and nodded. 

“If you think that’s best. Let me go change.” Betty flashed her own wavering Stepford smile, and darted upstairs before her mom could change her mind. While she tosses clothes on her back and papers and books into a box, she sends a group message to Jughead, Kevin, and Archie. 

_Parents went full nuclear. Window is unlocked, please someone take the locked box under my bed and hide it somewhere._

Once she saw a thumbs up emoji from someone roll in as a reply, she deleted the conversation from her phone. The last thing she did before leaving her room was slide a couple of photos from her mirror into her bra for safekeeping. 

By the time Betty’s parents signed off on her release from in patient treatment a few months later, everything in Riverdale was different. Jason Blossom’s death was officially unsolved, but rumored to be a suicide. Jughead was gone, supposedly run out of town by his own father and a handful of his thugs. Fred Andrews was dead, shot to death in a robbery at Pop Tate’s diner. Archie was gone too, having been taken to Chicago to live with his mother upon his father’s passing. Betty herself was effectively on house arrest, and was even being home schooled. She was forbidden from talking to Kevin, and could only speak to Polly with their parents or the Blossoms present. The only person she could talk to, really, was Cheryl. Forced together by fate, the two built a friendship forged in equal parts fear and fire. 

It was enough to help them survive, anyway.


	3. The Lodger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Betty sat on her sofa, shaking, with tears in her eyes, Jughead Jones, Veronica Lodge, and Archie Andrews were all unknowingly racing their way to Riverdale, to each other, and to Betty’s apartment.

Veronica Lodge maintained a number of Google alerts centered around her father and his business. His name, any companies he privately or publicly owned or had control of, and any place he spent a significant amount of time, money, or other resources. He was the kind of man one needed to keep tabs on. So when a sleepy town called Riverdale where Hiram Lodge has been known to do business and is part owner of several hotels lights up Veronica’s phone one morning, she finds herself glued to a brief article and some speculation about its source. The article concerns the death of a woman named Pollyanna “Polly” Cooper, and links it to an older unsolved death of a young man named Jason Blossom. The names tug at Veronica’s memories, so she does some googling and digs through her old files. 

After she finds out why she remembers those names, it takes Veronica an hour to pack a few bags, drum up a short term lease at an apartment complex in Riverdale under a false name, and hook her phone up to her car’s bluetooth speaker system so she can make a call while she drives. 

“Veronica Lodge’s office, how can I help you?” the familiar voice of her assistant says on the other end of the line. 

“It’s Veronica. I need you to look through my contacts and my old research databases and do anything you can to find me a current phone number and address from Elizabeth Cooper for Riverdale, New York. Then send whatever you find to my private email.” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Thank you, Toni. Remind me to give you a bonus when I get back.” 

Veronica Lodge, daughter of Hiram Lodge, everyone’s favorite corrupt businessman slash borderline mafia don, was a corporate lawyer with a chip on her shoulder bigger than the island of Manhattan. She’d known since high school her father was a terrible person, so she’d played nice until she would have full control of her trust fund and her shares of Lodge Enterprises. The minute she did, at the stroke of midnight on her 21st birthday, she sold all her shares and stock options and transferred that money, as well as her college fund and trust fund, into private accounts with a different bank. The next morning she submitted her application to Harvard Law. 

Some people might have criticized her decision to keep money her father earned, but she had her reasons. By making sure she had a nest egg, something to live on and pay for school, it meant she could work cases almost entirely pro bono once she made a name for herself. So she did, working for free on wrongful firing and corporate corruption suits. Helping people who couldn’t afford good help. Helping people like the ones her father made a living screwing over. Helping people who were in over their heads. 

Veronica Lodge knew her father. There was no way he and his cronies weren’t going after Polly Cooper’s sister. Elizabeth Cooper was going to be in over her head, sooner rather than later, and Veronica was going to make sure she didn’t drown. 

“Call Archie Andrews.” Veronica said, voice slow and clear. Ringing came from her car’s speakers as she kept up her pace driving. Archie was someone she’d met during her final internship at Harvard. She’d been looking at completed cases, for research, and to get dirt on her father. He was from Riverdale, the same town as the Coopers and the Blossoms. She’d convinced her to fund an anonymous scholarship for him years back, because she was pretty sure Hiram had had Archie’s father, Fred, murdered. Archie’s phone went to voicemail. 

“Archie, it’s Veronica Lodge, the lawyer. I’m going to Riverdale. I’ll be living at the Pembrooke, under the name H. Drew.” 

The reason Archie Andrews’ phone went unanswered was because he’d seen the article in The Daily Voice and was racing back to his hometown for the first time in years. 

While Betty sat on her sofa, shaking, with tears in her eyes, Jughead Jones, Veronica Lodge, and Archie Andrews were all unknowingly racing their way to Riverdale, to each other, and to Betty’s apartment. 

Jughead arrives at Betty’s house first, and takes a deep breath. Official business or not, it’s been a long ass time since he saw anybody from Riverdale. And this wasn’t just anybody. This was Betty Cooper. His childhood best friend, the girl who vanished, the person who made him realize he could want things. 

And now they were both here, in Riverdale, and just like all those years ago, everything was falling to pieces. 

He knocks. When no one answers after a few moments he adds—

“It’s uh, Agent Jones?”

Calling himself that in front of someone who knew him feels bizarre, but he doesn’t know what else to say. The lock on the door clicks, and swings open. Betty stares at him, eyes wide, seemingly in shock. 

“Your hair….” she says finally, before trailing off. Immediately she feels like a complete moron. Of course she can see his hair. Not only is he a grown man now, but he works for the government. He’s not going to be wearing a beanie on official FBI business. 

“Oh, heh, yeah. Beanies aren’t exactly standard issue.” he shrugs, and scrubs at the back of his neck. Betty nods, still feeling dumb, and swallows. 

“Yeah, obviously, of course. That was a dumb question. Oh, uh, come in, I guess? Do you still take your coffee black? Sorry, my place is really small.” Betty was babbling as she waved Jughead into her living room. He closed and locked the door behind him, frowning as he watched Betty adjust a white kettle on the stove. 

“Ms. Coo— Eliz— Betty. Betty, are you okay?” he finally asks, after several starts and stops, stumbling over what to call her. Yes, he is here on business, on a case for the FBI. But he’s also here because she _asked_ for him. At his voice, Betty stopped moving abruptly and blinked at him. Then suddenly she was shaking her head and sobbing, and all Jughead could think to do was walk towards his old friend and open his arms. 

“They took my sister.” Betty managed through her sobs. “The only member of my finally who _actually_ cared about me, and they took her away! The twins are _orphans!_ They’re orphans and their grandparents are all sociopaths, so all they have left is me and _Cheryl!_ ”

Her fist’s tightened into Jughead’s shirt as she sobbed even harder, her whole body shaking. Gently, he steered them towards her couch, because he could feel how badly her legs were straining to keep her upright.

“I’m sorry, I know this is very unprofessional and also we barely know each other anymore.” Betty’s voice was choked as she moved to pull back, looking and feeling embarrassed, but Jughead shook his head and pulled her into him again, rubbing a hand over her back. 

“Shh, Betts. It’s okay. I’m here.”

Suddenly, just like that, Betty was on a different couch in a different room, years before, still sobbing on Jughead’s couch. The scratchy fabric of the Blue and Gold’s ancient couch was under her legs, and she’d just pinned her own family’s name to the board of suspects in Jason Blossom’s murder. Jughead had pried her fists open, and led them over to the sofa to press her against his chest. 

“Shh, Betts, it’s gonna be okay. I’m here. I got you.” he’d whispered into her hair. 

“I can’t go home, Juggie,” she’d mumbled, voice broken as she’d looked up at him. “I _can’t_.”

“Then stay here. We’ll stay here. I got you.” 

And they had. They’d slept curled up on that scratchy sofa, barely enough room for the two of them. Jughead has insisted Betty sleep on the inside of the sofa, so if someone rolled off onto the tile floor, it would be him. He held her as she slept, her body shaking from time to time. 

They’d never talked about it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slight wait, I was sick! More of this is written, but I have to type it up, I do a lot of my writing in a notebook when it's slow at work. Hope you guys are liking this!


	4. The Secret Beyond the Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Archie Andrews arrives at Betty’s apartment, he panics when he sees a nondescript black sedan with government plates at the back of her driveway. Slamming his Jeep shut, he races to her front door and knocks loudly, yelling all the while.

When Archie Andrews arrives at Betty’s apartment, he panics when he sees a nondescript black sedan with government plates at the back of her driveway. Slamming his Jeep shut, he races to her front door and knocks loudly, yelling all the while. 

“Betty! Betty! B! Don’t talk to anyone, I have this friend, she’s a lawyer, and she’s on her way to town, don’t say anything! Betty! Open up!”

When the door finally swings open, Archie doesn’t know what to do with what he sees. It’s not betty who opened the door, but Jughead Jones. In a suit. Archie stares. 

“Jughead?” he asks finally, still staring. 

“It’s Agent Jones.” Jughead’s face is expressionless and his voice is even. Then he cracks a smirk. “No, I’m fucking with you. It’s still Jughead. I am an agent though.” 

“Where’s Be—” Archie begins, only to be interrupted.

“You can come in, Arch.” Betty calls out, her voice soft and hoarse. She’s folded into the corner of her sofa, pressing a tissue to her eyes. Archie steps into the room and closes the door behind him, still staring, somewhat dumbstruck, at Jughead. 

“So.” Jughead says, looking between Betty and Archie. “This is a weird reunion.” 

Betty sniffles and lets out a weird strangled laugh, and Jughead smiles comfortingly at her. After several more moments of strained silence, Archie finally speaks. 

“I’m so sorry about Polly, Betty.” he says quietly, moving through the apartment to squeeze Betty’s shoulder. Betty nods, still patting beneath her eyes with the tissue, damp with tears and streaked with makeup. Jughead sits back down on the couch, next to Betty, and she leans into him easily. With everything going on, this barely registers as weird on Archie’s radar. Years had past, but Betty and Jughead had always had a gravity between them that even Archie had never been able to interrupt. 

“You have a lawyer friend?” Jughead asks.

“Yeah.” Archie nods stiffly. “She found me a few years back, through my dad’s case. Her father is some skeevy corporate dude, and she was pretty sure he and his company had something to do with the shooting that killed my dad.”

“This lawyer, is her name Lodge?” Betty’s voice is quiet as she speaks, and she leans forward, frowning. “Lodge as in Hiram Lodge, as in Lodge Industries?” Archie nods again, and Jughead raises an eyebrow, clearly interested. 

“The New Jersey John Doe worked for Lodge Industries. He was wearing one of their corporate shirts. But he was an under the table hire, we could never figure out who he was. Probably a friend of the family who needed some spare change.” Jughead offers up this information as he’s pulling a pad of paper from the inner pocket of his suit coat. 

“It was also one of the connections we could never prove, back in high school.” Betty leans back over as she speaks, reading Jughead’s notes as he writes them. She mumbles something Archie can’t make out in Jughead’s ear, and he nods, adding something to the page. Familiarity strikes Archie as he watches them. Betty and Jughead hadn’t spoken to or seen each other in years, and yet put them together in one room with a problem to solve, and it looked just like high school, only fifteen years older. 

There were two main ways the people Archie, Betty, and Jughead grew up with viewed the former trio. There were those who saw Betty as the odd one out, the one girl hanging around two boys who were like brothers. Then there were those who saw Jughead as the outlier, the poor weirdo hanging around Riverdale’s golden someday-couple. But sometimes, watching them, Archie had felt like he was the outlier. After all, Betty had been the one to bring them all together, the one to introduce him to Jughead. 

They were five, and Betty had seen Jughead sitting alone on the curb, and run off to make friends with him. A few weeks later, she’d physically dragged him by the wrist into Archie’s yard and announced they were now all ‘very best friends’ and that was that. So even though Betty was his girl next door, even though Jughead was his sworn blood brother (A pact made with pricked palms and a spit shake, which earned them an extensive lecture from an 8 year old betty about being unsanitary), even though Betty had been Archie’s first kiss, even though Jughead had practically lived with the Andrews, Betty and Jughead had always had an innate closeness Archie had never been able to understand, or feel a part of. 

He’d asked Jughead about it once, after everything fell apart and Betty was spirited away. They’d been hiding out in the Andrews’ garage, slumped on the couch, trying to figure out what the hell to even do. 

“What is it? You and Betty, I mean. Like, we’re all best friends, and you’re my brother, and Betty had that crush on me for like, years, but there’s this… thing between you two that I don’t think I should or even could have anything to do with.”

Jughead had sighed then, staring at the worn toes of his boots. 

“It’s hard to explain,” he’d said, letting his head flop and loll back against the back of the couch. “I have known both you and Betty for basically as long as I’ve been able to form significant memories. But with Betty, it’s like I’ve known her even longer than that. If I believed in past lives or reincarnation, or anything like that, I would say that’s what it was. That I knew her in a past life, and in this one we just picked up where we left off. Even though she and I are so goddamn different, even more different than you and I are, there’s something about Betty I feel I just innately understand, and vice versa.” 

“It sounds like you love her.” Archie had said then, after a stretch of silence. 

“I barely know what love looks like, Arch.” Jughead had replied, shrugging. 

It had always struck Archie as one of the saddest things Jughead ever said. 

Slowly, Archie dragged himself back into the present. 

“Jug,” he said, breaking the silence in Betty’s apartment “How’d you even hear about this so fast? It’s not even official public knowledge yet.”

“An ‘anonymous,’ ” Jughead smirked, using air quotes “ source sent me a scanned newspaper article as a tip. The paper it was published in was conveniently just outside Rockland County, and therefor Hal and Alice Cooper’s media stranglehold. 

“Kev told me yesterday morning, before anyone else knew.” Betty shrugged, keeping her eyes downcast. 

“You told Jughead?” Archie asked, tilting his head in confusion. 

“Yeah. I spotted his name in an article about a case I was keeping up on a few years ago. I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to him, but I did start sort of keeping track of his career and his cases when they popped up in papers.”

“I can still hardly believe Kevin took over his old man’s job.” Jughead said incredulously, shaking his head. 

“We should tell him you’re here.” Betty said, just as her phone buzzed and lit up with a text “Oh. It’s Kevin. He says ‘Lunch meeting. Pop’s. Now.’ and then there’s another that says ‘Bring Jughead, I know he’s here. The NY office called the station.’ That takes care of that then, I guess.” she said with a sigh. She looked, and sounded, exhausted. Jughead squeezed her shoulder. 

Again, Betty’s phone buzzes. It’s Cheryl, and she heaves a sigh of relief as she reads it. 

_The orchids have been delivered to the nursery_

“Cheryl and the twins are out of Thornfield. I told her this morning and suggested they stay elsewhere.”

“Yeah, good idea.” There’s a grimace on his face as Jughead speaks, and Betty knows he must be remembering the long lost footage they saw all those years ago. 

“Okay, Pop’s. Arch, you should wait here. Intercept your friend. If the two of you have my home address, I don’t see why a high powered lawyer wouldn’t. I think all three of us walking in would raise too much attention.” Betty stood, legs shaking slightly, as she spoke. It had already been a long day, and it didn’t look to be getting any better or any easier. 

“We’ll bring you back some grub, courtesy of my FBI expenses account.” Jughead shot Archie a watery smile, moving to follow Betty to the door. “Betts, we should take your car. It’s more casual. And until the police move their investigation into the open, I’m just here to comfort a mourning friend.”

Keeping in this line of thought, Jughead paused at his own car to make a few wardrobe adjustments. He lost the suit jacket and tie, and loosened the collar of his button up shirt. He also rolled the sleeves up, and took down his suspenders, leaving them hanging behind him. It’s a look that takes Betty right back to high school, and she offers a small, tight smile. 

“All that’s missing is the beanie.” She said, as lightly as she could manage. 

“Oh, this old thing?” Jughead reached into the seat pocket of the passenger side and presented the old grey crown shaped beanie to Betty, then tugged it on over his hair. 

“Reminds me of when Archie, Valerie, and I dragged you to homecoming. Before everything imploded since my parents are, you know, actual sociopaths.” Betty led Jughead over to her car, a powdered blue refurbished Chevy Monza she’d fixed up years before. 

“Yeah well, my dad didn’t exactly help matters.” Jughead mumbled, slouching in the passenger’s seat. 

“This town is toxic. Or cursed. Or something.” Betty said with a sigh, pushing her car into gear. 

“Why did you stay?” Jughead asks suddenly. Betty’s grip tightens on the steering wheel, and her knuckles go white, and this time it’s Jughead that’s reminded of homecoming. Specifically him and Betty tucked into a booth at Pop’s, long after Archie had taken Valerie home. He was drinking his umpteenth black coffee of the night, and Betty was nursing a strawberry shake. Neither of them had wanted to go back to the places they’d come from. Jughead didn’t want to go sleep in the empty office of the Blue and Gold, and Betty didn’t want to see her parents, so they were mutually wasting time. That had been the night she showed him her fists, knuckles white, and unfurled her fingers so he could see the scars on her palms. 

“The twins.” Betty’s quiet voice snapped Jughead back to reality. “And Polly. And Cheryl. Someone had to be here to keep an ear to the ground and their eyes out.” 

“Will you stay when all of this is over?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can anyone guess what kevin needs to tell them? it has to do with one of jug's other cases.


	5. Undertow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Betty and Jughead drove the short distance to Pop’s, the third and final person racing to Betty’s apartment arrived. Veronica Lodge slid out of the driver’s seat of her sleek, dark blue European made car and surveyed her surroundings.

While Betty and Jughead drove the short distance to Pop’s, the third and final person racing to Betty’s apartment arrived. Veronica Lodge slid out of the driver’s seat of her sleek, dark blue European made car and surveyed her surroundings. There were two other cars there— a hunter green Jeep and a black sedan with New York government plates. The presence of a federal agency was either very good, or very bad. She was pretty sure the Jeep was Archie’s. So if Betty Cooper, the person who actually lived here, owned a car, it was gone. Fixing her coat, Veronica headed over to the door and knocked. When it swings open, Archie is standing behind it. 

“Betty is out. She and Jughead went to see Kevin. Or, um, technically I guess she and Agent Jones went to see the sheriff? I’m not sure if Jug and Kevin are there in personal or professional capacity.” Archie shrugs, looking overwhelmed. 

“Yeah, I’m going to need a crash course in what’s happening here.” Veronica walks into the living room, glancing around. Decorations were sparse to nonexistent, save a few pictures of strawberry blonde twins. It was the home of someone who lived here out of obligation, who was just waiting for the minute they could run away. It was a home Veronica knew well. She’d had her fair share of them. She glanced back over at Archie, raising her eyebrow expectantly. “Well?”

So Archie sits down at the table and begins explaining the whole situation to Veronica. He starts simple, with a quick who’s who. Kevin Keller, the town sheriff, who was helping Betty. His father, the retired previous sheriff, was in with the Coopers and Blossoms and was being kept carefully out of the loop. Kevin had a boyfriend named Joaquin, who had once been in a dangerous local bike gang, and was now sort of Kevin’s man on the inside. The biker gang, the Southside Serpents, was run by FP Jones, father of Jughead Jones. Jughead was now Agent Jones of the FBI, and Betty had anonymously contacted him to bring him onto the case after her sister died. Back in high school, Betty, Jughead, and himself had all been close friends. When Jason Blossom, who was dating Polly’s sister, turned up dead, Betty and Jughead started playing detective. 

The two of them had found hard evidence implicating Clifford Blossom and Betty’s own mother, Alice Cooper, in Jason’s death. Betty’s mother had found the thumb drive with the footage on it and stolen it, and had Betty forcibly committed to an in patient mental health program. FP Jones, who’s involvement had been suspected by the duo but never confirmed, kicked Jughead out of the house, and the town. He’d moved to Ohio, to live with his mom and sister. So fast forward several years, and when Polly Cooper turns up dead at the same shoreline Jason Blossom did all those years ago, Kevin had known exactly what it had to mean, and told Betty before the official reports ever went out. 

“What made you guys think the old sheriff was in league with the Blossoms and Coopers?” Veronica is scribbling notes at high speed, trying to slot things together as Archie talks. 

“He was having an affair with the mayor, Sierra McCoy, who was—”

“Involved with shady business with the Blossom-Coopers’ suspected out of town contact, one mister Hiram Lodge.” 

“Yes, that.” Archie nodded. Veronica sighed heavily and rubbed her temples. 

“This town is fucked up.” 

While Archie filled Veronica in on the past decade or so of Riverdale drama and gossip, Betty parks her car in the lot at Pop’s. She and Jughead sit in silence for a few moments, and Betty braces herself for whatever is to come. 

“Hey.” Jughead says quietly “You can do this. We can do this.” 

And he puts a hand on her elbow and squeezes slightly, and Betty gives a slight nod. His reassurance eases the knot in her chest enough for her to leave the car. 

“When this is over and this whole damn town is in prison, I am moving so, so far away.” Betty mumbles under her breath before she pushes open the door to the diner. Immediately, she spots Kevin in a far back corner and walks that way. She pretends not to feel the eyes of every single customer on her back. She’s sure Jughead feels the stares too, as people wonder what he’s doing back in town. When they lower themselves into the other side of Kevin’s booth, there’s already food at their seats. 

“I know you’re probably not hungry, B, but it will look better this way. Jughead, I assume you’re still always starving.” Kevin’s voice is low, and he’s dressed in plain clothes, glancing around the room. Jughead and Betty both nod, and Betty takes a sip of the strawberry milkshake in front of her. She can’t bring herself to eat, she doesn’t think, but drinking she can manage. Jughead stays casual, and eats a french fry. 

“Okay, B, just like before, this is strictly off the books. I am here, meeting you, as Kev, your friend, not the sheriff. Because this is going to get out and your parents and Riverdale’s own gothic horror villains are going to flip.” 

“I understand.” Betty nods again. Jughead does too. The booth is tense and quiet, and the difference between this visit and the many lunches they spent here on summer vacations gives Betty whiplash. There is no laughter in the sticky August heat to be had today. The chill of autumn is settling into the town, into Betty’s very bones. Like she’ll never be warm or laugh easily ever again. 

“A few weeks back, I was at a city hall event and I overheard your parents fighting. Something about back when they were in school. But something about something your mother said has been bothering me ever since, so, on a hunch, I ran Polly’s DNA through the system. I’ll have to fix it later, but it’s logged as a Jane Doe for now. But I got a hit.” 

“What?” Betty blinks, startled. 

“A John Doe in New Jersey, who was killed a while back, is a fifty percent DNA match for your sister. Which means he would be for you. You had a brother, Betty. You had a brother, and someone murdered him too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI SORRY i'm not dead i swear! i got very busy and then i got sick and then it was april and i wrote a poem every day and. yes. sorry! also sorry but also not for the end of this chapter. shrug emoji. wink emoji.


	6. Journey Into Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I… have a brother. I have a dead brother.” Betty’s face goes pale as she speaks, and the straw in her milkshake falls from between her lips. The words feel like a lead weight in her heart. Her heart feels like a corpse, heavy and cold, sinking into the muddy river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, and in the story from here on out, there is an allusion to illegal sex trafficking. i didn't want to put it in the tags, because spoilers, and in this chapter it's just a throw away reference, but it will be a plot point. take care of yourselves. as an additional note this story will NOT contain and specific references to rape at any point other than what is implied by the existence of trafficking. 
> 
> also: spot the cliche as hell twin peaks reference!

“I… have a brother. I have a dead brother.” Betty’s face goes pale as she speaks, and the straw in her milkshake falls from between her lips. The words feel like a lead weight in her heart. Her heart feels like a corpse, heavy and cold, sinking into the muddy river. 

“The John Doe in Jersey. The one who worked for Lodge Industries.” Jughead offers, his voice flat as he sneaks a glance at Betty, checking her for signs of rising panic. Instead, he sees the tell tale signs of shock. Labored, rapid breathing. Hollow eyes. Ashen skin. He puts a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her, even as he directs his next words at Kevin. “I’ll be right back.” he says, squeezing Betty’s shoulder and picking her car keys up from the table. 

When they’d driven Betty’s car to Pop’s, before they left, Jughead had thrown his go bag into Betty’s car. Call him paranoid, but he liked to feel prepared. Digging through it, he unearthed a flannel shirt. Warmth and comfort were essential to treating shock, especially emotional shock. Rushing back into the diner and their small, tucked away booth, Jughead slid onto the bench seat and wrapped the shirt around Betty’s shoulders. At first, she was still and silent. Then her hands slowly wound around the open front of the shirt, along the button holes, and pulled it around herself as her body slumped slightly. 

For several minutes, no one spoke. 

“At least now we can be more sure of the Lodge family’s involvement.” Betty says, finally breaking the silence, her voice still hollow. Hesitantly, Jughead reaches over and puts an arm around her. Yes, he’d comforted her earlier that day, but that had been in the privacy of her living room. Now they were in a diner, in clear view of people who knew her, knew him, knew what was happening. But, he reminded himself, he wasn’t officially here yet. He was playing the out of town friend, comforting the grief stricken girl next door. And besides, after he’d pulled Betty against his side, she’d stopped shaking quite so much. 

On the formica table top, Betty’s phone buzzes. Wordlessly, she pushes it over to Jughead, a silent admission that she just isn’t up to whatever awaits. 

“I don’t know your passcode.” 

“Three-one-eight-five.” Betty says quietly. Jughead types it in, looking perplexed. “It’s three digits of the Fibonacci sequence in reverse order. Five, eight, thirteen. Easy to remember, hard to guess.” she explains. 

“Of course,” Jughead says in response, his voice fond, “No initials or birthdays for Betty Cooper, intrepid reporter.” he reads the text. “I think it’s Archie, based on what they said? The message says his lawyer is there and he gave her a rundown of what’s happening. But your contact name is just a bunch of numbers.” 

“I had Dilton Doily teach me basic hashmap encryption so my mom couldn’t tell who my messages were from even if she checked my phone records.” Betty presses the palms of her hands into her eyes, and Jughead frowns, rubbing her back comfortingly. 

“You are really and truly afraid of her, aren’t you?” he says quietly. 

Betty nods. 

“Clifford Blossom killed his own son. My parents knew. They _helped_. And now I have two dead siblings. I don’t know exactly what my parents are capable of, or what they’re willing to do, but I can’t take chances. Cheryl could be next. Or the twins. Or me.” her voice is hushed, kept carefully too low for the rest of the diner to hear. 

Jughead had known, driving into Riverdale, that he wasn’t leaving until he solved this case. But in that moment, listening to Betty frankly express fear for her life, fear of her own family, as she cowered into his shoulder, he realized he would do anything to fix this. To fix this for _her_. He didn’t care if it got him fired. Hell, he didn’t care if it got him court martialed. 

He was going to bring whatever slow, syrupy was evil flowing beneath Riverdale to an end. 

And he was going to end it _now_. 

Their tense silence is interrupted by Betty’s phone buzzing again, this time with a phone call. She sees the contact on screen and her eyes go wide, and she grabs the phone, pulling it to her ear urgently. 

“Is everything okay?” Betty whispered, panic clear in her voice. On the other end of the phone, Cheryl spoke. 

“The twins and I are safe, if that’s what you mean. But I just got a phone call. A phone call meant for a very different ‘C. Blossom’, if you catch my drift, and Betty… I think things are worse than we thought.” Cheryl is also whispering, probably trying to make sure the teenage twins don’t hear her. 

“What happened?” 

“It was a business contact of his, I recognized his voice. I tried to play it cool because he was visiting right before Polly went persona non grata on us. But he said something about being ready to bring the ‘new girls’ on his next visit to Jack’s. I assume he meant One Eyed Jack’s, and I don’t want to imagine what he means by ‘new girls’ for very long…” Cheryl’s voice trails off, and she sounds uncharacteristically meek. “This is really, really bad Betty. I am like, legitimately afraid. What if whoever called figures out who I am?”

“Cher, I’m gonna put someone else on the phone with you. I promise you can trust him, okay? Tell him what you told me.” Betty hands the phone to Jughead, who nods and listens attentively as Cheryl tells him what happened. Meanwhile, Betty scribbles a note to Kevin, afraid to speak out loud in the diner. After he reads it, she tears it up into pieces and shoves them into the bottom of her milkshake tin. 

Jughead hangs up the phone, and pushes it over towards Betty. The table is silent again. After a moment, Jughead waves a waitress over, places an order for food and coffee to go, and hands her his agency credit card. 

“And a cup of coffee to go to.” he calls after her, changing his mind last minute. “Pop makes a damn good cup of coffee.” 

“You have to put Cheryl into protective custody. And the twins.” Betty says immediately, her voice still quiet and urgent. Jughead nods, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Yeah. As of now, my presence here is official and public record. I’m calling for reinforcements. I’ll find a nearby safe house for an agent to stay with Cheryl and the twins. You should consider joining them, Betty. I have a distinct feeling this is all about to get very unsafe.” 

“No.” Betty shakes her head, and both Kevin and Jughead open their mouths to argue, but she shakes her head again. “ _No_. I have to do this, Jug. I have to help.”

Her eyes are fiery as she looks at him, and reaches over to grasp his shoulder. She is scared and determined and strong and desperate all at wants. 

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Okay, but you have to let an agent stay with you. Please, for my own peace of mind. I just—” he stops in his tracks, shaking his head, wiping the words he almost spoke from his brain 

_I just got you back_ , he thinks, _I can’t lose you again_.

“Please.” he says instead. 

“Fine. An agent can stay with me, on one condition.” Betty says, chewing at her lip and fiddling with the hem of Jughead’s flannel, still wrapped around her. 

“Anything.” he says earnestly, grasping her hand, still on his shoulder, with his own. 

“It has to be you. I won’t trust anyone else.” 

“Okay. Agreed.” Jughead answers immediately. 

It’s not exactly protocol, it’s probably breaking bias and propriety six ways from Sunday, but he’s past the point of caring.


	7. Detour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jughead, Betty, and Kevin decide, unanimously, that while they need to go back to Betty’s and gather up Archie and his lawyer friend, and then go find Cheryl, so they can all talk together, Betty’s place is not the place for that talk.

Jughead, Betty, and Kevin decide, unanimously, that while they need to go back to Betty’s and gather up Archie and his lawyer friend, and then go find Cheryl, so they can all talk together, Betty’s place is not the place for that talk. Betty is grateful Kevin and Jughead understand enough about this town to not think she’s being completely paranoid. Her parents are criminals, probably murderers, and she wouldn’t be surprised if they were spying on her somehow. They all decide to meet at a diner outside Rockland County, near where Jughead has been hastily setting up a safehouse for Cheryl and the twins. With all this decided, they head back to Betty’s. 

“That much be Archie’s lawyer’s car.” Betty nodded at the new car in her driveway as she ducked out of the driver’s seat. Kevin, in his civilian car, pulled in behind them, leaving his engine on. 

“I’m waiting here. I don’t wanna waste any time.” he says when Jughead and Betty both look at him questioningly. They nod, and Betty unlocks her front door. 

Her eyes are puffy and her face is red from shock and crying, and she’s still wearing Jughead’s spare flannel over her clothes, and it’s not really the kind of persona she feels comfortable projecting in front of a professional and complete stranger, especially when she sees how sleek and collected Veronica Lodge looks sitting at the living room table, phone in hand. The woman looks up when the door opens and smiles. 

“You two must be Betty Cooper and Agent Jones. I’m Veronica Lodge.” she holds out a hand, and her nails are immaculate. They both accept the handshake. 

“In the interest of brevity, we’ve got upsetting news and a lot to talk about, and Betts has raised the valid concern of being overheard, so we’re all meeting at a diner outside Rockland County. I will be texting you all the address.” Jughead says, sounding professional even as he fails to notice how easily the old nickname for Betty rolls off his lips. He nods, ending the non-conversation. Veronica hands him a business card, which has her private cell number on it. 

“See you guys in a few hours.” Betty says, and disappears into her room for a minute. Pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, she lets out a heavy, slow breath. Her sister is dead. The brother she never knew she had is dead. The Blossoms are not just murderers and drug dealers, but sex traffickers. A sob hitches in her throat, and she tries to swallow it down. This isn’t the time, she tells herself. She can deal with all this, all her grief and mourning, when the mystery is solved. When she can rest knowing she did everything she could for her sister, even if she’d been too late to save her from this shitty, cursed town. As she stands there, silent, still digging her palms into her eye sockets, she hears a car pull away. Then another, and another. She listens for the fourth, but it doesn’t come, and then she feels a hand on her shoulder and she just knows it’s Jughead that hasn’t left, and is standing behind her, offering his support. She turns to face him, eyes bleary. 

“Sorry.” she whispers, wiping her eyes “I know we need to go.” Jughead shakes his head, and puts a hand on either of her shoulders, looking down at her softly. 

“It’s okay, Betts. And it’s also okay if you need to step back. Not do this.” his voice is worried, and Betty wants to wrap her fists in his shirt and push her head into his chest. 

“I have to. I have to.” her voice is urgent, desperate, as she looks up at him, and he nods, looking solemn. 

“Please ride with me. You’ve just had an enormous shock. I don’t think you should drive.”

Betty looks down at her hands. They’re shaking. She nods. 

“Yeah. Okay.” she says, her voice just as shaky as her hands. “But we have to make a pit stop first. We have to go to the treehouse.” 

Jughead looks confused by this request, but nods, and in silence the two drive to an old corner of Riverdale. On the way there, Jughead thinks about the old treehouse, the number one place he, Betty, and Archie used to wile away their days. When they were young, they’d place house or wizards or superheroes, and when they were older they would talk, or play cards. Most of his happy childhood memories took place in that rickety little house. Hell. He’d had his first kiss there. 

Both he and Archie had the same first kiss, which should probably have been a point of contention for them growing up, but never was. It was Betty. For Archie, it happened in the second grade. For Jughead, it was fifth grade. They’d all been at a birthday party, and during a game of truth or dare, someone had dared Jughead to give Betty a kiss. Embarrassed, he’d weaseled his way out of it, but Betty looked hurt and actually left the party. Jughead felt terrible for hurting his best friend’s feelings, and went to hunt her down. She was, of course, in their old treehouse. Jughead carefully climbed the ladder and sat down beside her on the dusty floor. 

“What do you want, Jughead?” Betty asked, trying her very best to sound mean. 

“I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings.” Jughead frowned. 

“It’s fine, Jug. You don’t want to kiss me, I get it! I’m all pointy and clumsy and I like weird books too much.” Betty twisted her hands into the skirt of her dress and Jughead frowned again, shaking his head so violently it made the beanie he wore shift. 

“No, no, Betts, I was scared. There were so many people, and most of them only put up with me because of you and Archie. I’ve never kissed anyone before, I can’t just kiss my best friend at Ethel Muggs’ birthday party!” he looked flustered, fiddling with the brim of his hat. 

“You’ve never kissed anyone?” Betty asked, looking surprised and tilting her head to one side. 

“Definitely not. And if the day ever comes I willingly kiss a girl, it will be you, Betty Cooper.” Jughead turns bright red as he says it, but Betty grins and giggles. 

“You’re sweet, Juggie.” she says, and then she leans over and plants a gentle, sweet peck on his lips with her own. 

She tastes like strawberry frosting. 

Jughead, in the present, shakes his head to clear it of the memory. It wasn’t the time for memories like that. Betty is in his passenger seat, staring wordlessly out the window at Riverdale’s grim facade of autumn. It looks like it’s getting ready to storm. They reach the treehouse, and Betty vanishes up the ladder without a word. She brings down a lockbox, then a small accordion file, then a shoebox duct taped shut, and then another lockbox. She loads them all into the backseat of Jughead’s car. 

“They’re all my old notes. Our old notes. Articles from the Blue and Gold, recordings we took, newspaper clippings, my old journals. Stuff like that. I hide things in the treehouse. I don’t think anyone comes here, I staked it out for a few days once.”

“That’s smart, after what happened with the thumb drive.” Jughead offers, pulling out of Riverdale’s neighborhood street system and onto the frontage road, so they could head out of the county. 

It’s just over an hour’s drive to the diner in the middle of nowhere, and Betty sleeps the whole drive, curled up in Jughead’s flannel, legs tucked under her in the seat. 

He lets her rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry for the wait!!! life was bananas and then i wanted to finish watching s2 before i sat down to work on this again. this chapter was mostly just meant as a transition into the actual investigating, but i hope you all enjoyed regardless!!


	8. The Secret Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gathered around the diner table looks exhausted. They’re just outside the woods somewhere in upstate New York, at some diner Jughead knows of called The Double R. On one side of the table, Betty sits between Jughead and Cheryl. On the other, Kevin leans against the window, Archie sits in the middle, and Veronica is on the edge of the booth, staring at a cup of coffee. The waitress, who apparently knows Jughead, just leaves two pots of coffee on the table after seeing the way everyone looked.

Everyone gathered around the diner table looks exhausted. They’re just outside the woods somewhere in upstate New York, at some diner Jughead knows of called The Double R. On one side of the table, Betty sits between Jughead and Cheryl. On the other, Kevin leans against the window, Archie sits in the middle, and Veronica is on the edge of the booth, staring at a cup of coffee. The waitress, who apparently knows Jughead, just leaves two pots of coffee on the table after seeing the way everyone looked. 

“Formal introductions are in order, I believe.” Cheryl says, her voice clipped as she nods at Veronica, just across the table from her. 

“Veronica Lodge. Lawyer, unwilling daughter of corporate scumbag Hiram Lodge. Friend of Archie.” she holds her hand out, and Cheryl takes it, nodding. 

“Cheryl Blossom. Unwilling daughter of gothic film villains, cousin of our darling Betty.” she offers a half hearted smile. Meanwhile, Betty’s eyes go wide and she jerks her head sideways. 

“Cheryl! Cheryl, who is watching the twins?” her eyes are full of panic, and Cheryl puts a hand on her shoulder. 

“Relax, B. They’re with a trusted friend. I promise they’re safe. I would never endanger them.” Cheryl’s voice and eyes are uncharacteristically soft, and Betty nods, exhaling heavily. 

“Yes, okay, I should have known that. Sorry.” Betty gives her an apologetic look, and Cheryl just shakes her head. 

“Already forgiven, Betty.” Cheryl squeezes her shoulder again. “I know most of us know each other, but maybe for the sake of our mysterious new friend we should all play introductions?” Cheryl prompts gently. 

 

“Kevin Keller. Sheriff, unfortunately. Also, everything I tell you people, except for Jughead, is off the books. I can’t do anything through official channels, because the unholy union of Blossom-Cooper owns this entire town, and they will eat me for dinner.” he offers Veronica an awkward two finger salute.

“Jughead Jones. Federal agent, son of FP Jones the leader of the Southside Serpents, aka the muscle and intimidation behind Blossom and Coopers’ iron fists.” Jughead nods. 

“Betty Cooper. I’m a journalist. My sister is the dead girl, my family is crazy.” Betty says quietly, running a nervous hand through her hair. 

“We’ve met.” Archie says simply, looking over at Veronica and shrugging. 

“Okay, so now that we all know who we are, let’s talk about connections.” Veronica says, folding her hands on the table. Jughead and Betty both lean over and start pulling various sheets of paper, folders, and notebooks from a dusty box, and spreading them over the table. 

“This is what we have so far, for the most part,” Betty says, shifting into detective mode, “But we’re missing something, and I think it’s probably your dad’s connection.” she pushes one of the folders over to Veronica. It has ‘Lodge Industries?’ written on it in red pen. Inside, along with notes and documents, is a picture of Charles Cooper, Betty’s murdered brother. 

“Wait, I know this guy. He worked for my dad, he was a friend of someone I used to be close with, until I figured out what and who he was.” Veronica points at the photo, and Betty nods. 

“He was my brother.” she looks over at Kevin “Kev ran Polly’s DNA, out of curiousity, and found him. I’ve had his case in my files for awhile, because of where he worked and because Juggie worked the case. We think your dad, or someone close to him, probably had him killed for looking into his biological family.” Betty stirs her coffee, just for something to do.

“It was probably Nick.” Veronica said, scowling. “Daddy always did like to make the St Clair’s do his bidding.” 

“Wait, Nick St. Clair?” Cheryl asked, frowning and looking up. “I know Nick St. Clair.” she turns to Kevin and points. “And so do you. Nick St. Clair is the Sugarman.”

“So that’s one way my father plays into this, then. He’s the town’s drug hookup. Amazing. Wonderful.” 

“I don’t think that’s all my family is selling, anymore. I got a call today, and I couldn’t place the voice but now that you mention Nick’s name, I’m almost positive it was him on the phone. Is it possible Nick or your father are involved in illegal sex trafficking?” Cheryl fidgeted slightly as she asked, looking uncomfortable. Veronica’s face darkens, and she nods. 

“I don’t have concrete proof, but I have my suspicions. So my family is funneling drugs and probably kidnapped women in Riverdale, and he gains money and a foothold in the town. But what are your parents getting out of it? Or the Coopers, for that matter. Weren’t your families already wealthy?” Veronica frowns, and Betty pulls another notebook from somewhere. 

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and this is my best guess, now that we have this information about Hiram Lodge.” Betty pauses, scribbles some notes onto a diagram, and flips it around for the rest of the table to see. “My parents have money, but not as much money as the Blossoms. Sometime before we’re all born, the Blossoms and Coopers decide to reconcile and work together to run Riverdale. The Blossoms start buying up property, using FP’s gang to rig the market, and my parents use the Register to run damage patrol and paint the Blossoms in a good light. Things are going well, and my family starts buying up other media companies with the help of the Blossoms.

“This is where your dad probably came in, Veronica.” Betty points to one of the circles on her diagram. “He catches wind of the Blossoms buying up property in a town he has stakes in. He meets with them. Instead of competing, he decides he wants in. He provides Clifford Blossom with a drug hookup, and Clifford enlists FP and the Serpents to sell them. One Eyed Jack’s becomes their base of operations. Time passes, and our respective parents have kids. We grow up. Jason Blossom starts dating my sister, Polly, and this is what sets the dominos tumbling.” 

Betty pauses for a moment and looks around, trying to see if anyone looks lost. Kevin and Jughead are both taking notes, and Veronica, Archie, and Cheryl all appear to be listening attentively. Betty takes a drink of coffee, then continues. 

“We know Clifford killed Jason. We know my dad, at least, knew about it. Probably my mom too. Before Jason was killed, he tried to convince Polly to leave Riverdale with him. There’s no way this is a coincidence. Since Jason was supposed to be Clifford’s heir, chances are he found out about the drugs, tried to get out, and Clifford shot it. FP and the Serpents clean up the mess. Soon after, the basement of One Eyed Jack’s goes under renovations. I get locked up in the psych ward, Jug gets run out of town, Fred Andrews gets murdered, and Archie moves to Chicago.” Betty traces the path of the diagram with a spoon handle, chewing on her bottom lip. 

“You think my dad’s death had something to do with the renovations.” Archie says suddenly, putting two and two together. 

“I think it’s possible that your dad, being who he was, wanted to figure out what his once good friend FP was getting into, probably to try and get him out of it, and saw something about the renovations he shouldn’t have, and someone had him taken out for it, yes.” Betty says, the pain clear in her voice. 

“And since Jason was killed for knowing something he shouldn’t have,” Jughead adds, pointing to some notes he’d scribbled on the margins of Betty’s notebook. “Chances are, so was Polly. And she was missing before she died, so she was probably also tortured. Probably tried to scare her into silence or cooperation.” Jughead moves his hand to Betty’s lower back as he speaks, pressing lightly, trying to offer her an anchor.

“Dad never, ever let me come down into the basement clubhouse. I bet that’s where they keep girls.” Cheryl says, her voice soft and quiet. Betty reaches over, squeezing her cousin’s hand. Cheryl frowns, looking thoughtful and intense. “You know, Polly brought the twins over, a few weeks ago, and went to go find my mom to give her something the twins had made in school. But she was gone for a really long time, and left suddenly right after she came back. And I think Clifford had a conference call that day.” 

“She probably heard something she wasn’t supposed to.” Kevin says, frowning. He’s scrolling through something on his phone, and Archie leans over to see what it is. 

“Why do you have a log of Serpent activity?” Archie asks. 

“My boyfriend Joaquin gets information from them. He’s my inside man. I’m seeing what they were up to around the time Polly want missing, since FP’s the clean up man for Blossom and Cooper Incorporated.”

“They may have cleaned up but… I’m positive whoever… tortured. And then killed Polly.” Betty takes several breaks getting the sentence out, and looks like she’s on the verge of tears “It was one of my parents. They value loyalty so much, they were always talking about it. Cooper Loyalty, Cooper Family Values. It had to be one of them.” the confession looks like it causes her physical pain, and Jughead wraps an arm around her. Again, she’s reminded of that night at the Blue and Gold, of the last time she had to accuse her parents of murder, and she can’t believe this is happening again. 

“I hate this.” she says after a long silence, her voice cracking. Jughead tightens his grip on her, and Cheryl grabs on of her hands, squeezing. From across the table, Kevin nods, and Archie just frowns, looking defeated.


	9. Let Us Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group sits in silence after Betty speaks, no one sure what to say or do in reaction. Jughead is the first one to finally speak, his arm still wrapped tight around Betty. 
> 
> “It has to be over, this time. We have to end it, and we have to end it right.” his voice is low and serious, and everyone nods. Betty just leans into him, and wonders if he can feel the gratitude rolling off of her in waves.

The group sits in silence after Betty speaks, no one sure what to say or do in reaction. Jughead is the first one to finally speak, his arm still wrapped tight around Betty. 

“It has to be over, this time. We have to end it, and we have to end it right.” his voice is low and serious, and everyone nods. Betty just leans into him, and wonders if he can feel the gratitude rolling off of her in waves. 

“Cheryl, what did you say when someone looking for your dad called you?” Kevin asks, looking over. 

“I played along. Pretended to be his secretary.” Cheryl answers, frowning and stirring her cup of tea. 

“So he doesn’t know who he was talking to?” Kevin continues. Cheryl shakes her head, but frowns deeply. 

“Well no, but it’s not like I can try and arrange a meeting. Nick St Clair has met me before, he knows what I look like and who I am. He’d narc on me immediately.” 

“We need a stranger’s face. And not mine, I’m a lawyer, I have to stay clean.” Veronica offers, pulling out her phone. “I’m calling in reinforcements. My assistant used to be a cop. She worked vice. She can help us.” she explained, while rapidly typing a text message. 

“That’s a good idea. Kevin can register her as a CI when this is all over, it will help keep things above board.” Jughead adds. 

“So what all do we need to know still?” Archie asks, furrowing his eyebrows together and looking over at Jughead and Betty. Betty finally speaks, ticking numbers off on her fingers. 

“We need to know who killed your dad and confirm our suspicions as to why. We need an in with the Blossoms, because catching them in the act with irrefutable proof is the only way to do this. We need to figure out what Polly knew, which of my parents killed her, and why. We need to tie FP, my family, the Blossoms, and Lodge Industries together in a way that can’t be denied or ignored.” Betty scrubs her face with her hand, sounding and looking exhausted beyond belief. 

“That’s a tall order.” Veronica offers. 

“We’ll figure it out.” Jughead says, his voice hard. Under the table, Betty squeezes his knee in thanks. 

“Well, Toni says she’s in. She’s on her way.” Veronica says, speaking to the group but looking at her phone. “When she gets here, Cheryl, you’ll put her in touch with Nick St Clair. Once we have someone inside this rumored secret brothel, we’ll work with that.” 

“The basement club will still have security, I’m positive. My dad doesn’t have any scruples, but he does have a paranoid voyeur streak a mile wide.” Jughead flips through a notebook on the table, scribbling notes. 

“I bet I can get to them, if Veronica’s friend can get me in unseen.” Betty adds. “Hashmap encryption isn’t the only thing I made Dilton Doily teach me. I couldn’t risk having something like what my mother did with that thumbdrive ever happen again.” 

“Is that safe?” Archie asks, looking at Betty with a frown. 

“None of this is safe, Archie! My sister was murdered! Our town in run by drug lords, sex traffickers, and some dude from the city who’s this close to being a literal mafia don!” Betty hisses, smacking her palm against the table and then wincing when it clanked the silverware “The other people who knew these things were going on are _dead_! This town is cursed, it’s poisonous, and we need to get everyone responsible locked up, and then we need to leave and never, _ever_ look back.” 

The other side of the table looks slightly scandalized by Betty’s outburst. Cheryl looks sympathetic, and a little bit like maybe she’s heard this before and agrees. Jughead looks equal parts sympathetic and proud, and then also a little bit murderous, like he wants to rip the town of Riverdale apart for causing Betty Cooper so much pain. 

“We’ll get them, Betts.” he says quietly, practically whispering into her ear as he rubs her lower back. “I promise. I’ll do anything.” she nods, and squeezes his knee again. 

Archie and Kevin share a look, then both look over at Cheryl, who rolls her eyes. Veronica is the only stranger here to Betty and Jughead’s unknowing intimacy. She looks at them for a few moments, confused, and decides to ask Archie about it later. With his arm still around Betty, Jughead takes control of the conversation again. 

“So, we wait for Toni to make it to town. Cheryl, while safely in protective custody with the twins, arranges a meeting between Nick and Toni. This, hopefully, gets Toni into One Eyed Jack’s. Between Kevin and I, I’m sure we can set up some support for Toni, if she needs extraction.” Jughead begins scrawling a plan of action on a napkin as he speaks. “Veronica, do you have any way to access information from your father?”

“Some, why?”

“We’re gonna catch your dad the way we would any other organized crime kingpin. Financials. We need his records.” Jughead says, sticking his pen cap into his mouth as he continues scribbling. 

“I can pull something off, yeah.” Veronica says, pulling out her phone once more. 

“Kevin, or Archie. We need the building plans for that basement clubhouse. I bet that’s what got Fred in hot water. Betty and I will work with records and information from her place. And when Toni is in place, she can try and get Betty into the clubhouse. I can probably give you guys a list of possibly useful key phrases, words, and info on my dad that could come in handy. And Betts, I want you to keep a log of _everything_ , however you can. We need records.” 

Jughead looks around the table at everyone, and they all nod in agreement, taking notes on paper scraps or on their phones. 

“Before we part ways, I’m going to run an errand. There’s a convenience store, just down the road. You guys wait for me here, okay? This concerns all of us.” Jughead says, before squeezing Betty’s shoulder and hopping over the booth seat to the empty space behind them and making for the diner door. Betty looks bereft without the weight of him holding onto her, and she leans into the side of the booth he’d vacated, staring half heartedly at her notes. 

“I know terrible things are happening, but is anyone going to explain what just happened to me, or am I being left to fend for myself?” Veronica asks, waving a finger at where Betty was and Jughead recently had been. 

“That’s just how Betty and Jughead are.” Kevin said with a shrug. “We were all friends back in high school, when things started getting bad.” 

“Jughead is the Ned Nickerson to Betty’s Nancy Drew.” Cheryl offers “Not that they ever really dated, but they did solve mysteries together, before Betty got locked up and Jughead got run out of town.” 

“Betty, Jug, and I have known each other since we were like four years old.” Archie adds. 

Betty has nothing to contribute to this conversation, and continues reading over her notes. They aren’t wrong, and while it’s not the ideal time to be talking about all this, she can’t blame them for wanting something else to focus on. With so much death and danger around, the tense air threatens to choke the life right out of them. Betty won’t deny them a distraction, especially one she’s been giving into herself. 

Had Betty had a handful of daydreams over the years of her handsome childhood best friend swooping in and saving her from Riverdale? Of course she had. Yes, she knew she was a full grown independent woman and she didn’t need anyone, let alone Jughead Jones, to be her knight in shining armor. But it was nice to think about, damn it! She’d been fending for herself since she was fifteen, fighting tooth and nail to keep herself, her sister, and her niece and nephew afloat in this black hole of a town. It was nice, once in awhile, to imagine Jughead riding into town on a motorcycle, punching both of her parents in the nose, and driving her off into the sunset and the hell out of Riverdale. And now… now he was here. With her. Helping her, and supporting her, just like he always had back in high school. 

And maybe it was the stress, or the trauma, but she didn’t think so. She could feel herself slipping back into her old high school feelings like it was yesterday, and wasn’t that just how it always was with them? Always easily falling into their own orbit, always leaning on each other? 

Maybe she just wanted something _good_ to come out of all this darkness.


	10. You and Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walking just behind Jughead, Betty felt heavy. The exhaustion and stress of everything happening was pulling on her very bones, and it was taking every ounce of strength she had to keep standing. She had to do this, she knew she did. Not just for Polly, or the twins, but for herself, and all the ways she and her loved ones had been made to suffer for the Coopers and Blossoms grip on Riverdale. But that didn’t make it easy. That didn’t mean that sometimes she didn’t want to give it all up, run away, change her name, leave it behind. Forget everyone from her past and just start over, somewhere with different trees and different skies.

Jughead walks back into the diner twenty minutes later with a grocery bag full of burner phones. He hands everybody one of them, and they all swap numbers. He gives Veronica a spare for when her assistant gets there, with everyone’s numbers programmed into it. 

“Okay,” Kevin says, sliding the burner phone into his pocket. “I have to get back to town. I do have a job to do, technically.”

“Please be careful, Kev.” Betty says emphatically, squeezing his shoulder. 

“I’ll do what I can.” Kevin answers, looking and sounding exhausted. 

“Archie, Veronica, you two head back into town and meet up with Toni, I’m going to take Betty and Cheryl to go pick up the twins and then take them and Cheryl into protective custody. Then, Betts and I will head to her place and look through our old files.” Jughead sighs, and offers a hand to Betty to help her up. She follows his lead, and looks over at Veronica and Archie. 

“You guys be careful too.” she says, voice soft. 

“I’ll work on getting some info about my dad ready for you guys. Whatever I can get ahold of.” Veronica gives a terse nod, already typing up notes on her phone. 

“And I’ll look through city construction files. Say I’m looking for something of my dad’s, or something like that. Maybe I can find something about the building.” Archie adds with a shrug, and Jughead nods at both of them.

“Keep in touch, guys.” He puts a hand on Betty’s back, and then motions at Cheryl to follow them. Everyone goes their separate ways, drifting off to their cars to get started on the next step in their respective plans. 

Walking just behind Jughead, Betty felt heavy. The exhaustion and stress of everything happening was pulling on her very bones, and it was taking every ounce of strength she had to keep standing. She had to do this, she knew she did. Not just for Polly, or the twins, but for herself, and all the ways she and her loved ones had been made to suffer for the Coopers and Blossoms grip on Riverdale. But that didn’t make it easy. That didn’t mean that sometimes she didn’t want to give it all up, run away, change her name, leave it behind. Forget everyone from her past and just start over, somewhere with different trees and different skies. 

But she can feel Jughead’s hand, warm and solid, against her spine, and she can hear the shuffle and strike of Cheryl’s heels on the pavement, and she can see all her memories of Polly and the twins in her mind, and she knows she can’t actually give up. She knows she will work this mystery to the bone. She will work until her fingers bleed, until she solves this case or dies trying. There is not other option, not anymore. She doesn’t really think there ever was. Betty lets out a heavy sigh, and leans into Jughead, pressing some of her weight onto him. He accepts it gladly, moving his arm to better support her. 

Betty reaches a hand out behind her, and waits for Cheryl to pick her pace up slightly and squeeze Betty’s fingers with her own. Betty looks from Jughead to Cheryl, and thinks about all the ways their families ruined this town, ruined them. But they got this far, even when everything pushed them apart. They could go just a little bit farther, together. They could end this. 

They _would_ end this. 

“Are you sure you’re comfortable contacting Nick, Cheryl?” Jughead asks as the three of them load into Jughead’s car. They’ll come back for Cheryl’s later. Cheryl nods, and Jughead watches from the rearview mirror. 

“I want this to be over. And I want to help. I spent too long unknowingly complacent in Mommy and Daddy’s evil schemes. Intentionally or not, I was part of all this, and I have to help end it. It’s the only way to begin to atone for the person I used to be. The only way to live up to the kind of person the twins deserve, and the kind of person Polly and Jason thought I could be.” Cheryl’s voice is quiet in the silent car, and Betty reaches back to her once more, this time over the car seat, and squeezes Cheryl’s hand. 

“It’s not our fault the hands that fed us were giving us poison, Cher.” Betty says, sounding sad. Jughead nods in agreement, reaching over and resting a hand on Betty’s knee. 

“I know. But I hate knowing that it’s part of me, that they’re part of me.” Cheryl frowns, and her eyes look watery, and Betty and Jughead both sigh, feeling the sentiment lay heavy in their chest. 

“I hate it too. That’s why we have to do this.” Betty releases her cousin’s hand, and Jughead starts driving. Betty watches the evergreens streak by, and endless stream of douglas firs, and reality fades to nothing but the whoosh of tires on asphalt and the way the rain blurs the scenery through the windows. 

The silence in the car as they drive is somehow both comfortable and deafening. 

Dealing with the twins is a handful. They’re grieving and traumatized, and they have no idea who Jughead is, or why he wants to drag the two of them and their mother to some apartment in the middle of nowhere. They especially don’t know why they can’t tell their friends where they are, and Betty, Jug, and Cheryl all struggle to explain what’s going on in a way that makes sense but isn’t completely upsetting. 

Eventually, they settle on the truth. 

That someone hurt Polly, and they’re afraid that Cheryl could get hurt too, so Jughead is helping keep them safe. The twins seem young for their age, but Jughead can’t really blame Cheryl, Polly, and Betty for trying to keep them sheltered from the rest of Riverdale. Better naive than dead, in this particular case. 

They drive back out through the woods, taking a different route out of town than last time, and arrive at a quaint gated community somewhere in the woods of Westchester County. There’s a tall man in a leather jacket leaning against a motorcycle outside the gates. 

“That’s Agent Fogarty. We work together. He’s some of the back up I called it. Consider him your personal security detail while under FBI custody.” Jughead says as he parks the car, motioning to the man. “Wait a day, and then get in touch with Sinclair, then immediately fill Fogarty, myself, and Betty in on what happens, okay?” He turns his attention to the twins “Listen to your aunt, okay? Aunt Betty and I, and my partner, are going to do everything we can, but you guys have to pay attention too, okay?”

The twins nod mutely, and Jughead simply nods back at them. Betty steps out of the car, and gives the twins and Cheryl tight and tearful hugs before clambering back into the passenger’s seat. 

“This town makes me hate trees.” Betty says quietly, as they drive back into the Riverdale town limits. “Because when I see them, all I can think about it the miles and miles of nothing between me and anywhere outside of Riverdale, New York.” 

“We can move to the pacific northwest,” Jughead offers, pulling into Betty’s driveway. “New trees, new sunsets, new skyline.” 

“You have a job, Juggie.” Betty says quietly, breezing past the intimacy of his _we_ and moving straight into practicality. 

“Not forever,” Jughead shrugged, undoing his seatbelt. “I never planned to stay with the bureau any longer than necessary. I joined because of what happened here. Once I solve the mysteries of Riverdale, I’m out. Out of the bureau, and out of New York, and hopefully never looking back.” 

“Hopefully?” Betty asks, pulling herself into a standing position and stretching. 

“There’s a person or two I’m hoping might come along. But if they don’t, I’ll just have to keep an open mind about the empire state.” Jughead offers her a wry smile, and despite the circumstances, Betty offers him a slight smile back, and the tiniest flush of pink cheeks. 

“It could be nice to live somewhere the sun sets over the ocean.” Betty murmurs, unlocking her front door. 

Their conversation stops abruptly as they transition into sleuthing mode. They scatter documents and notes and photos and old copies of the Blue and Gold over every surface in Betty’s small living room. Betty takes a pink pen and a pink highlighter, and shoves a set of green ones at Jughead, so that they can keep their own notes straight, and they set to work. Jughead is cross legged on the sofa, laptop on his ankles, sorting through Riverdale’s financial records, looking for useful information and cross referencing logs he has of his father’s workings with the Serpents, both his own from back in the day, and Kevin’s. Betty is sprawled just below him on the floor, laptop open, comparing Jason, Charles, and Polly’s autopsy reports while she scrolls through the edit history on the Register website. 

They’d spent more than a few nights like this, back in high school. It was easier for them to hide out at the trailer than the Cooper house. FP was almost never home, and when he was, he was usually unconscious. After Jason, Betty had spent a lot of late evenings on the floor with Jughead, trying not to fall asleep as they switched between working on homework and trying to figure out who murdered the young quarterback. 

“You know,” Betty says, stretching a crick out of her neck and brushing against Jughead’s legs “When I got out, and asked where you went, my mom told me you left at first. That you’d left town without telling anyone.” 

Jughead slides from the couch to the floor, settling beside Betty. She looks small and vulnerable, and her face has a smudge of pink highlighter on it, and there’s a pen tucked into her wavy hair, just behind her ear. 

“I wouldn’t have done that.” Jughead said seriously, meeting her eyes. Betty nodded. 

“I knew that right away. Archie told me, eventually, but even before that I knew it couldn’t be true.” Betty offers a sad smile “I knew you wouldn’t have left us behind.” 

“I was so fucked up about leaving, Betts. Because I didn’t really know where you were, or what was going to happen with you, and I knew all these terrible things about our families, and suddenly my dad was waking me up in the middle of the night, surrounded by his Serpents, and running me out of town. I was terrified, for myself, for you. Terrified something awful would happen to you and I’d never know.” Jughead’s voice is low, and rough, and Betty looks like she’s on the edge of tears.

“But you came back for me,” she whispered, clutching his hands suddenly “I used to have all these stupid daydreams that someday, my best friend would come back and get me the hell out of here, fantasizing about you swooping in and saving me like I’m a fairy tale princess instead of an independent woman trained in self defence.” Betty sniffles, and takes one hand to rub a tear away from her eye, smearing her mascara “And then you did. You came back.” 

Jughead is so, so close to her now, she can practically hear his heartbeat. His body is radiating warmth, and Betty wants to be so much closer to him that she just vanishes into him. All of these awful things were happening, and she was so very, very afraid, but if anyone could get through all of this, it was them. They could get through this together. 

Jughead swallows heavily, and rubs his thumb along Betty’s cheek, trying to smudge away the pink highlighter. He wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her and he feels crazy for it, because this is the first day they’ve spoken in years, because her sister is dead, because they’re all in danger, because they were stupid, fifteen year old kids back then but now that he’s in a room with her, all he can think is that he is still so goddamn in love with her. 

Betty leans into his touch, following his warmth and the feeling of his skin like it’s the only thing keeping her grounded. She thinks maybe it is. 

She also thinks maybe Jughead is looking at her lips, and that his breathing sounds like home and she looks from his lips to his blue eyes and back again, leaning forward, and then—

A phone buzzes violently on the counter, and the sudden noise shocks them apart, tense and blushing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here is where shit will start getting real, both from a plot perspective and a ship perspective ;)


	11. Satan Met a Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Betty’s phone ringing. The lit screen doesn't show a name or number. Just ‘Incoming Call’ and the answer bar with no additional information. Betty meets Jughead's eyes as she reaches for it. He nods, but his eyes look suspicious. She answers it, hits speaker, then lays a finger to her lips as she gives Jughead a pointed look.

It’s Betty’s phone ringing. The lit screen doesn't show a name or number. Just ‘Incoming Call’ and the answer bar with no additional information. Betty meets Jughead's eyes as she reaches for it. He nods, but his eyes look suspicious. She answers it, hits speaker, then lays a finger to her lips as she gives Jughead a pointed look. 

“Hello?” Betty says, voice guarded. 

“Hello, dear.” the voice on the other end says. It’s rough but soft and breathless and it sends shivers cascading down Betty’s spine. She squints, focusing. It sounds as familiar as it does creepy. Where has she heard that voice before? “There’s an infestation in Riverdale, you know. They’re everywhere, from the deepest basement to the very tip top of town. And they’re watching, Miss Cooper.” Betty’s eyes widen, and Jughead looks from her to the phone, frowning deeply. 

“You know how to kill a roach, don’t you dear? You have to destroy the head.” the voice whispers ominously before hanging up abruptly. 

Betty and Jughead sit in silence, glancing from the other to the phone in Betty’s hand. 

“Was that a hint or… a threat?” Betty says finally, whispering like the mysterious voice could hear her over the disconnected call. Jughead shook his head. 

“I have no idea.” he said lowly, a deep frown on his face. “Shit, I should have recorded that.”

“My phone automatically records my calls.” Betty says quickly, shrugging. “Dilton set it up for me.”

“When did you two get so close?” Jughead asks, fighting to keep an unearned note of jealousy from his voice. Now was not the time. 

“When I got out of the hospital and everyone was gone, and I realized he wasn’t paranoid. He was right.” Betty shrugs, her face tired and drained. 

“I should send a copy of that recording to the bureau.” 

“I’ll send it to you and you can forward it along.” Betty says with a nod, tapping away at her phone. Jughead’s buzzes in return. 

While Jughead types away a message to whoever he’s sending the recording to, Betty sinks back into the sofa, and feels the weight of everything press in on her, slow and cold, like the deep ocean. On top of the grief and stress and worry, there’s now a fresh tang of guilt. How could she be thinking about kissing Jughead at a time like this? People were in danger. Her sister was dead. Not only was it unethical, since he was conducting an official investigation and probably already bending the rules by including her, but it was just… inappropriate. Betty groaned quietly, pressing her face into her hands. And honestly, what was she thinking, bringing him back here? FP had to know by now that his son the fed was in town, so Jughead was probably in danger on top of everything else. 

Betty wants to scream, wants to plunge her nails into the flesh of her palms, wants to break something, wants to sob. But she doesn’t do anything, because if she seems more upset, Jughead will comfort her, and she’ll let herself lean into him, and she’ll be focusing on him instead of her grief about her sister, instead of her duty to fix this entire fucked up situation. Jughead seems to read her hesitation in her body language, and he doesn’t reach out for her. Part of her is glad, thankful and admiring of the way he can read her. But part of her wishes he would reach out anyway. Instead, he’s staring at his phone, which looks like it has a transcript of the recording on the screen, and he’s scribbling it into a notebook. 

“So, hint or threat? What’s your theory?” Jughead says finally, his voice quiet in the strained silence. 

“I think it’s a hint. I recognized that voice, though I can’t tell you where from yet, I can’t place it. And she called it an ‘infestation’ and said they ‘were watching’, which doesn’t exactly make it seem like she’s on their side.” Betty frowns, and picks up her own notebook, which has a list of names on it. It’s essentially anyone in the town of Riverdale with known close ties, generally by blood or marriage, to the Coopers, Blossoms, Lodges, or Jones. 

“She told us to destroy the head. That would mean kill the leader, right?” Jughead flips through a manila folder resting on his knees. 

“I would assume so. And she also said the basement of the city, which if I had to guess, I’d say she meant your dad’s club. We already know nothing good is happening there.” Betty mumbles, digging through pages on the floor to find something “And up to the top of the town. So someone important?”

“Who’s the mayor these days?” Jughead asks, picking up yet another list, this time of city employees. 

“Some lawyer.” Betty says, picking up a news article and dropping it on Jughead’s knees. “Peabody. Her name’s Peabody.” 

“Penny? Penny Peabody?” Jughead said, looking down at Betty, his voice grim. 

“Do you know her?” Betty looks alarmed.

“She’s a damn snake charmer. A Serpent lawyer. She’s the reason no one on my dad’s crew ever served hard time. She’s smart as hell, and she’s dangerous.”

“Well fuck.” Betty says simply, sounding exhausted. Jughead lets out an awkward snort, which he tries to cover with a cough. “What?”

“Just still not used to Betty Goody Two Shoes Cooper dropping f-bombs, I guess.” He shrugs, and Betty offers him a tired, half hearted smile. 

“So Mayor Peabody is dirty. What do you want to bet Lodge Industries and Clifford Blossom bankrolled her election, which some healthy donations from One Eyed Jack’s and the Riverdale Register?” 

“I would not bet a lot on that, because I’m about one hundred and three percent sure you’re right. You should get this info to Archie’s lawyer friend. Maybe she can keep an eye out when she’s looking through Hiram’s financials.” Jughead offers. Betty nods, and picks up her burner phone, finding the coded contact for Veronica and filling her in on everything they’d learned. 

“I think tomorrow we should go see Dilton Doiley.” Betty says, setting the phone on the ground. “I think he could have some useful information.” 

“Will he talk to us? He seems pretty secretive, teaching you about encryption and all that.” Jughead turns slightly, facing Betty more head on. She nods. 

“He wants to help. He knows something isn’t right in this town.” Betty sighed, lowering her head and running her hands through her hair exasperatedly. “I can’t believe what a mess all this is. All I can think about right now are all the times I wanted to be selfish and just leave. Who would be here to stop this? Would someone else have noticed eventually? Would someone else have gotten suspicious when Polly died just like Jason, or would my parents have just swept everything so far under the rug that no one would ever know any better?”

“You could leave, Betty.” Jughead says, quiet and serious “No one would blame you. You aren’t a cop, you aren’t a federal agent, you’re just a person. This isn’t your responsibility.” he puts a hesitant hand on her lower back, and rubs circles into her spine when she doesn’t jump away from him. 

“But it is,” Betty stresses, shaking her head “It’s my family doing this. The Coopers and the Blossoms are the rot running through Riverdale’s veins and I have to do something about it.” her voice is strained, desperate, and Jughead wants to wave a hand and fix it, make everything go away “There were so many nights after I got out of the hospital where I laid awake and dreamed about running away, Juggie. Just sneaking out of my window and never looking back. Hitchhiking to California or Washington. Getting on a bus to Ohio.”

“Wait, Ohio?” Jughead interjects, frowning.

“Yeah. To see you. Hoping you were out in the suburbs, living a normal, or mostly anyway, life? That was one of the only things that got me through high school. I thought about running away to you more than I thought about going to find Archie and his mom in Chicago. I felt like he would…. judge me, or something. But you would get it. We’ve always been the same, Jug.” Betty shrugs, looking drawn and tired. Jughead takes a risk, putting his arm more fully around her and tugging her into his side. She collapses, letting herself slump against him. 

The guilt threatens to overwhelm her again, but she forces it down. Polly would want her to rest. Polly would want her to be supported, to know that someone had her back. Then, like he’s somehow reading her thoughts, Jughead speaks, his voice low and comforting. 

“It’s okay, Betts. It’s not selfish. And even if it was, you would deserve it. Everything I’ve seen about your life since I got here this morning has been for other people. You keep a low profile from your parents. You support Cheryl and the twins. You do what you can for Kevin. You stay in this haunted, melancholy excuse for a town because of the people you love, because you want to protect them. You don’t have to do that, not with me, okay? From now on, when it’s just us, you can be as selfish as you need to be. You can’t play superman if you fall apart, Betty.” Jug’s voice is warm and reassuring, and he’s running a thumb along the knob of her wrist. Betty finds herself nodding as she leans into him further, practically laying in his lap as she curls her head into his chest. 

As she lays against him, Betty cries softly. Not the great wracking sobs of the night before, or even that morning, but a series of soft sniffles while tears leak of their own accord down her cheeks. Neither of them speaks. Jughead pulls an arm tighter around Betty, stroking her side. He does not tell her that it’s going to be okay, because they have no way of knowing that. They’ve got one hell of a fight ahead of them, and it’s going to be messy, and terrifying, and possibly bloody. And Betty is the strongest person he’s ever met, but she feels so tense and fragile in this moment that he can’t risk the lie, hopeful as it may be. So he rubs her back until she falls asleep.

Unconscious in Jughead’s arms, Betty dreams. In her dream, she’s tearing through her childhood home, looking under her bed for something. It’s hot, too hot, and there’s a mounting sense of unease she can’t place. She calls out for the twins, and no one answers. She pulls herself from under the bed, only to notice the house is ablaze. She calls for the twins again and hears nothing, sweat and tears soaking her face as she struggles to find something. She knows she can’t lose it but she doesn’t know what it is. 

_Where are the twins?_ , she thinks in her dream, panic slowly ramping up. _What did I lose?_

Her bedroom door bursts inward, shattering and splintering, pieces of wood and metal joining the flames licking her walls and vanity. Betty turns to look and sees her father, looming in the doorway, mouth covered in a black towel to keep the smoke out. He extends a hand, and she stumbles forward, reaching for him. 

_The flashdrive,_ she remembers. She was looking for the flashdrive with the footage of Jason’s death on it. The grip of her father’s hand is strong around her small fingers. Really strong. It hurts, Betty can feel her skin bruising, tries to pull away, but she can’t. Her father stares into her eyes as he practically crushes her hand with his, leading her through the flames, careless of whether they bite at Betty’s skin, and he opens the door of the basement. But it’s not the basement of the Cooper house, not the way it should be. It’s the room where Clifford shot his own son in the head. Jason’s bloated, rotting, waterlogged corpse is tied to a chair. Beside him is Polly, looking slightly less decayed but no more alive. There are two empty chairs, and Betty knows, deep in her gut, they’re for her and Jughead. 

“Tell me where he is.” her father hisses into her ears, the gold metal of a gun barrel against her temple. 

Then Betty wakes up screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear to god y'all i am working on this. all things willing, i will have this fic and a new lynch inspired project done by halloween. at the very least, i plan to have this fic finished. 
> 
> any ideas on who called? ;)


	12. Advice to the Lovelorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty has had panic attacks before, more than she can count. The feeling of matchstick prickles on her skin and the tightness in her chest and the twisting in her guts and the burning in her lungs is as familiar as actually being able to breathe.

Betty has had panic attacks before, more than she can count. The feeling of matchstick prickles on her skin and the tightness in her chest and the twisting in her guts and the burning in her lungs is as familiar as actually being able to breathe. 

But Betty has never felt panic like this before. She wakes up, screaming and shaking and clawing at the air, her legs, the sofa, whatever is close enough, like she’s trying rip her way out of her skin. Her throat feels raw, and she can’t breathe, but she can’t stop screaming, and she can’t see, because her eyes are full of tears, and all she can hear is her own broken voice and the echo of her father’s whisper. 

_Tell me where he is._

Jughead is alarmed. He has no idea what to do with the screaming, sobbing, shaking Betty in front of him. He wants to comfort her, to reach out and stop her flailing before she hurts herself, or at least hurts herself any worse, there’s definitely a scratch on one of her arms already. But he knows it could just panic her further if he holds on too tightly, so he tries to talk instead, even if he’s not sure she can even hear him over her own voice. 

“Betty,” he says, as loud but soft and even as he can. “Betty, you’re awake now, it’s okay. It’s just me, Jughead. Come back, Betty. Come on, Betts, come back to me. It’s gonna be okay, whatever is going on we’re going to fix it, I’ll make sure of it. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, not if I can help it. Deep breaths, Betts, it’s okay, I’m here.”

Eventually, the gentle drone of Jughead’s voice breaks through Betty’s thoughts, and she manages to stop screaming. She’s still sniffling and shaking, but she’s come back to awareness, looking up at Jughead, her green eyes full of something he doesn’t know how to name. 

“I think my parents are going to do something really, really bad, Juggie.” she says, quietly. Her voice is raw from screaming, and even just listening to it hurts Jughead’s throat. He wonders if she has any tea and honey in this apartment. Maybe he could make her tea. 

“What do you mean, Betts?” he reaches over, less afraid to touch her now that she’s more conscious, and rubs her lower back. Betty pulls her lips tight over her teeth and shakes her head. 

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.” 

“Our entire lives are crazy, Betty. Just tell me.” Jughead inches closer, pulling his arm fully around her. Betty sighs, rubbing at her eyes. Her palms smudge her cheeks with blood, and Jughead frowns. 

“I had this dream,” she starts, then trails off, shaking her head again. “No, I can’t, it’s so stupid. Dreams don’t mean anything.” 

“Betty, everything happening right now is batshit crazy bullshit. Would a dream meaning something really be that outlandish?”

“I was in the house, and it was on fire, and I couldn’t find the twins, and then my dad was there, and he had a gun, and there were all these chairs and Polly and Jason were in them and they were dead, and there were empty chairs, and I knew, I just _knew_ they were for you and me. I was looking for the flashdrive, and he had a gun to my head, and dad asked me where ‘he’ was, and he had to be talking about you, I know it. They want us dead, Juggie. No witnesses. No loose ends.” 

“Fuck.” is all Jughead says in response, pulling Betty closer yet again. She leans into him, slumping over and going limp. 

“We have to stop them. I don’t want to lose anyone else, Jug. I don’t think I can.” Betty looks up at him from where she’d curled against his chest. 

“I swear, Betty Cooper, we will stop our parents. And I swear, no matter what happens, I’m not going to let them or anyone else, get to you, or Cheryl, or the twins. I will keep you safe.” Jughead’s voice is serious, and his hands are tight on her shoulders. “That’s what really drove me nuts, living with Gladys and JB after dad drove me out of town. That Jason was dead, and you were all alone with your parents with no one to watch your back. Polly was grieving, Archie has always been well intentioned but kind of a dipshit. Cheryl is a terrifying force of nature, but deeply unpredictable.” 

“You thought about me?” Betty said, a strange note in her voice. Jughead gave her an incredulous look. 

“Every goddamn day, Betts. I told you, this bullshit with our parents is the whole reason I became an agent, and a good chunk of that was because I have spent over ten years sick to death with worry about you being stuck in this cursed den of maple syrup and sin.” 

Jughead’s voice is quiet but forceful as he speaks, and his eyes never leave Betty’s. She can still feel his hands, heavy and warm, gripping her shoulders, like he’s trying to keep her from floating away. She has no idea what time it is, she knows it’s morning, she can see bits of sunlight through the curtains. She knows that she is exhausted, and terrified, and that her face is wet with tears, not just from the nightmare, but from confirmation that Jughead had been out there, all those years, thinking of her. Worrying about her. Hoping she was okay. 

Betty thinks her lips must taste like salt when she lurches forward and kisses him, wrapping her arms tight around his neck. This time, the phone does not ring, the guilt in her gut does not send her reeling away. Jughead moves his hands from her shoulders to her lower back, pressing her close to him. When she finally draws back, her hands are tangled in his hair and she’s half in his lap, still clutching him for dear life, still crying, still exhausted. But Jughead has this look in his eyes, and for the first time since Polly went missing, she feels the slightest hint of hope. 

“I want to talk about this. After.” Betty says, her voice quiet and hoarse. Jughead nods, his nose brushing against hers. 

“Okay.” he agrees, and loosens his hold on her back slightly. She releases his hair and slides off of him, curling into his side instead. 

“So,” she says, still breathing raggedly “Dilton Doiley.”

“That seems like the logical next step.” Jughead says, reaching for his phone, discarded the night before. There’s a handful of useless updates from dispatch, which he ignores. There would be time for that later. 

“I’ll text him. See where he wants to meet.” Betty said, rolling her shoulders and rubbing her eyes. Jughead nods. 

“I’ll make us some coffee?” he offers, raising an eyebrow. Betty smiles gratefully. 

“I’m sure you can find everything. I’m going to text him, then jump in the shower and change my clothes.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jughead starts towards Betty’s kitchen, where it’s easy for him to locate all the necessary things for a pot of coffee because it’s impeccably organized. He hears the shower turn on, and decides to step out to his car and grab a change of clothes while the water boils. But when he swings open the door, the porch isn’t empty like it was the night before. There’s a plain, unmarked box, like the kind files get kept in, and Jughead swallows, his chest heavy. He knows what comes in boxes like that. Retreating to the kitchen, he grabs his burner phone and a long handled umbrella. Phone in hand, he nudges the box away from Betty’s driveway, towards the grass, before he knocks the lid off with the umbrella. Jughead curses under his breath, pulling out his burner phone to text Kevin.

In the bottom of the box sits a live, hissing copperhead rattlesnake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, you saw that correctly, this story has a set endpoint now! i have chapters fifteen, eighteen, and nineteen to write, and nineteen is going to be an epilogue! this story ended up like, way more fast paced than i meant it to, but that's life, i guess. expect much more regular updates while i finish this bad boy up!


	13. The Dark Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well,” Jughead says as Betty leaves her bedroom, hair wrapped up in a towel “in case you were wondering, my dad knows I’m in town. And he knows I’m staying with you.” he looks up at Betty grimly from his seat on the table, next to two steaming cups of coffee, and her eyes widen.

“Well,” Jughead says as Betty leaves her bedroom, hair wrapped up in a towel “in case you were wondering, my dad knows I’m in town. And he knows I’m staying with you.” he looks up at Betty grimly from his seat on the table, next to two steaming cups of coffee, and her eyes widen. 

“What did he do?” she asks, immediate and urgent.

“It’s fine, I texted Kevin. He sent us a gift.” Jughead’s voice is deadpan, his expression morose “A charmingly pissed off copperhead rattlesnake in a cardboard box.”

“Jesus.” Betty wheezes under her breath, leaning her forehead into her hands. 

“On the plus side, Kevin already knew, because Joaquin told him, so that means my dad still trusts Joaquin.” Jughead rubs a hand through his hair, sighing. Betty closes her eyes and takes a sip of coffee. 

“It’s not much, but it will have to do. The faint optimism, I mean. The coffee is fine.” Betty stumbles over her words, and Jughead reaches over, rubbing her hand with his. 

“Mind if I borrow your room to change my clothes real fast?” he asks, downing most of his coffee in one go. Betty nods. 

“Go ahead. You can shower if you want. We’re meeting Dilton in the microfiche room of the Greendale public library once it opens.”

Jughead nods in response to Betty’s statement, and then slips into her room. The shower doesn’t turn on, so Betty assumes he’s just decided to get dressed. Her burner phone buzzes with a text from Kevin. 

_Snake is taken care of_

Staring into space for a moment, Betty sighs and taps a message out in response. 

_Thanks. Keep an eye out for FP. Jug and I are meeting with Dilton, then I have a message I need to play for you._

She slid the phone across the table, and got up to stare listlessly into the fridge. They both needed to eat something before they set out for the day, but Betty just couldn’t bring herself to be hungry. She put an array of leftovers on the table for Jughead, and simply picked up a banana and a carton of Greek yogurt for herself before sitting back down. Jughead emerged from her bedrooms in jeans and fresh flannel, looking much the way he always had when they were kids. 

“Kevin took care of the snake.” She said quietly, poking at her yogurt with the spoon. 

“That’s good.” Jughead kept his voice level, eyes scanning the windows for anything weird outside before sitting down at the table again. 

Eventually, Betty forced down the rest of her meager breakfast, and Jughead decided he’d eaten enough, and they both headed out to Greendale, once again using Betty’s car to avoid suspicion as much as possible. It was early, and a week day, so the parking lot of the library was sparsely populated as the two made there way to the old brick building. The microfiche and machines to read it were all stored on the fourth floor, so they waited in silence for the elevator. If the parking lot was quiet, the fourth floor– home to town records and rare books as well as the newspaper archives– was completely deserted. Save, of course, for Dilton Doiley, sitting in the corner and rapidly scribbling in a notebook. Betty cleared her throat, and Dilton looked up. 

“Well, if it isn’t Forsythe Pendleton Jones the third, come home at last.” the once adventure scout said with a nod, standing and extending a hand to Jughead. Jughead made a face. 

“See, the nice thing about government work is no one ever uses your first name.” Jughead quipped, shaking Dilton’s hand. “I hear you’ve been helping out Betty.”

“It was only a matter of time until one of the two of you figured out just how rotten this town was. Your father made sure to send you away; he was smart. Maybe some part of him felt guilty, sure, wanted to get his son out. But mostly I think he was being tactical. He had to get you out before you started digging too deeply.” Dilton’s voice was calm and matter of fact. Jughead raised an eyebrow at his monologue. Dilton shrugged, and looked a little bit sheepish. “I spend a lot of time by myself up here, reading old police files. I get bored.” 

“Fair enough.” Jughead agreed. 

“That just left Betty. Fortunately for the people of Riverdale, and unfortunately for Betty herself,” Dilton nodded in Betty’s direction, acknowledging her “Her parents took the opposite approach. Tried to break her, tie her into the fold.” He turned to Betty more firmly this time, offering her a friendly expression and directing his words at her. “They underestimated you, of course. Most people do.”

“It’s its own kind of skill set.” Betty said wryly. 

“So,” Dilton continued “When Betty approached me and asked for help with technology and encryption, I knew she’d finally seen the truth. I had a hunch, too, it would only be a matter of time before she brought you home as well, Jughead. You do both have unfinished business here. We all do, and we have to deal with it so we can all stop haunting this god forsaken town like living ghosts.”

“Are you okay, dude?” Jughead asked suddenly, frowning. 

“I told you. I spend a lot of time alone. I don’t talk to people much anymore. Aside from Betty and Cheryl, sometimes, it’s basically just Pop Tate and my contacts.” Dilton shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets. 

“Contacts?” Jughead perked up at that, leaning forward. 

“A small circle of people I trust, scattered throughout the county. You know a few of them. Joaquin, Keller’s inside man on your father’s gang, for one. Trev and Valerie Brown, from high school. I aggregate all of the information I get onto an encrypted hard drive that’s hidden somewhere in this library” Dilton waved an arm vaguely. 

“I got an interesting phone call last night.” Betty offered, pulling her cell from her pocket. She found the recording and pulled it up, handing it to Dilton so he could listen. As he did, his expression grew more and more serious and more and more confused. When he finished listening, he handed the phone back to Betty, who sat down at the table and started spreading out the notes from the night before she and Jughead had made. “We think it’s a hint, not a threat.”

“The caller says to take down the head; we think she means the mayor.” Jughead continued, rifling through the papers for some information he’d gotten from Kevin and Joaquin. 

“Penny Peabody?” Dilton looked interested and pulled up his laptop, immediately starting to root though files. 

“Yeah. As I’m sure you’re aware, she has a history with the Serpents. But she wasn’t just a member, she was a snake charmer, and my dad’s unofficial right hand.” Jughead pushed a sheet of arrest and incarceration records over to Dilton. “These are from when Kevin’s dad was still sheriff and Penny still worked with my dad. Take a look at the charges versus the punishment and time served for Serpents versus regular Riverdale civilians. Penny is a lawyer, and she’s a good one–” 

Betty’s burner buzzing interrupted Jughead, and all three heads turned to look at it. She picked it up quickly, reading the message and then looked up, meeting Jughead’s eyes. 

“It’s Veronica. She says she’s with Cheryl, and her assistant Toni made it to town. Cheryl is playing phone tag, trying to get Toni a meeting with Clifford Blossom’s recruitment guy.”

“Recruitment?” Dilton frowned.

“Yeah, remember how you were looking over the plans for One Eyed Jack’s and going through the records and thought something seemed off? They’re sex trafficking. Running an illegal brothel through the basement.” Betty said, her voice quiet even in the deserted room. 

“Jesus.” Dilton breathed out heavily, eyes going wide. 

“Veronica, that’s Hiram Lodge’s estranged daughter by the way, is in town along with Archie. She keeps a subtle eye on places her father has dealings. She worked Fred Andrews’ case for Archie a few years back, and now she’s helping us out. She’s bring her assistant, an ex-cop named Toni, into town. We’re going to set up a meeting between her and Nick St. Clair, that’s Clifford’s guy.” Betty rubbed the bridge of her nose as she recounted everything going on. “Toni is going to talk her way into the basement, then get me in, and we’re going to get all the information we can from the system down there. Files, records, security footage.”

“That’s incredibly unsafe.” Dilton offered. 

“Breathing in this town is unsafe, Dilton. Existing here at all is unsafe. It’s time to do something about it.” Betty’s eyes were fierce, her face set with pure determination and steely resolve. Jughead reached over and squeezed her hand, nodding. 

“Kevin knows the plan, he’s going to make sure Joaquin is in the club while Toni and Betty are there. My dad doesn’t know he’s on our side, he still trusts him. I’m positive, because good old dad sent a live rattlesnake to Betty’s house this morning, and Kevin already knew about it because of Joaquin.” Jughead added. 

“Well, my next question was going to be ‘Does your father know you’re back?’ but I think the snake pretty much answers that.” Dilton blinked rapidly, resting his chin on his hands. 

“Veronica texted again.” Betty said quietly, frowning at her phone. “Cheryl got Toni a meeting with Nick St. Clair.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? That’s what we were going for.” Jughead leans over closer to her, trying to see the screen and figure out why she was frowning so deeply. 

“It is… but the meeting is in two hours.” Betty said finally, looking from Jughead to Dilton with something resembling panic in her eyes. Dilton swallowed, hard. Jughead closed his eyes, dragging his hands down his face. 

“Well fuck.” he said simply, staring at their pile of notes. Dilton nodded in the background, as if to echo the sentiment. 

“We need a plan.” Betty says, voice more level than she currently feels. 

“We _had_ a plan.” Jughead replies, glancing over at her. 

“Well, now we need a plan we can do in two hours.” Betty said definitively, turning to Dilton “Dilton Doiley, how would you feel about joining a rag-tag group of both civilians and law enforcement officials in a desperate bid to infiltrate a criminal enterprise run by most of our parents in less than two hours?” 

“I would say I’ve been waiting for this my entire life.” He answers, nodding. 

“Okay then. Let’s go. Do any of our major players know you, Dilton?” Betty asked, flipping through papers and scribbling madly in a notebook while she glanced at her phone. 

“No, I have a very low profile in this town by design. Once every two years I do something stupid but innocuous like get taken into the drunk tank, so everyone remembers I live here, but doesn’t feel like they need to worry about my presence. Being invisible can be suspicious too.” 

“Perfect. Change of plans. I’m not going in with Toni, Dilton is. He’s better with technology anyway, and he won’t have to sneak in. He can go in as a client. Cheryl can work that out, I’m texting her now.” Betty paused in her speech to consult a note and then rapidly type out a message, sending it to everyone in their small group immediately. “Cher said Nick sounds like they need girls, bad, so something must be going down either tonight or very, very soon. Jug and Kevin will be on standby. Everyone knows Jug is a fed, and that Kevin is the sheriff, so they aren’t exactly espionage capable. Cheryl will stay at her safehouse with the twins and Veronica, out of sight and out of harm’s way.” Betty frowned, pausing again to look for a specific page amongst the growing mess on the table. 

“If you aren’t going in with Toni, what are you doing?” Jughead asked, his voice careful and cautious. He knew there was no way Betty wasn’t going to be doing something, and the way she left her own actions for last worried him. 

“I’m getting to that. We know Joaquin is going to be at the club, Kevin is working on that right now. So we’ll have three people in the club, two people on standby, and two out of the picture because they’re recognizable. That leaves two people: me, and Archie. Archie is going to cause a distraction. He’s going to go to one of the buildings owned by Lodge Industries and kick up a fuss. Belligerent behavior, vandalism, the whole thing.” Betty halted again, firing off another text, before going back to her intense analysis of three separate sheets of paper. 

“And?” Jughead needled, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m going to blackmail my parents.” she said finally, looking at Jughead, mouth set, making sure there was no way he would try to persuade her otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY this has been written for ages but i was trying not to publish anymore chapters until i was done, and i'm still stalled on chapter 15. i have most of the chapters after that, even, but it's giving me fits. i swear to god y'all, this fic is going to get finished, my irl life is just A Mess and has been since mid october and this fic is Heavy emotionally for me. i love you guys!!! <3 find me on tumblr at elizabethbettscooper


End file.
